Gamification For An Engaging Banking Experience

Gamication for an Engaging
Banking Experience
June 2013
WHITE PAPER
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Gamication for an Engaging Banking Experience
Table of Contents
Preface 3
Executive Summary 4
Introduction 5
Denition: What Is Gamication? 5
Theory Behind: Why Does Gamication Work? 6
Case Study of an Electronic Giant: Samsung Nation 7
One Sunny Day in Samsung Nation 7
Our Research on Gamication in the Banking Industry 10
About the Questionnaire 10
Banks Plans About Implementing Gamication in Their Digital Channels 10
Gamication and Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty and Sales Efciency 12
Conclusion 13
Interviews 14
Lszl Szirki, Business Support and Development Leader, Budapest Bank 14
Celina Waleskiewicz, Head of New Banking Area, Alior Bank 15
Martin Kolesar, Web and UX Team Manager, ZUNO Bank 16
lvaro Morn Alonso, Innovation Manager, BBVA 19
Jaspar Roos, Inspiration Catalyst, ABN AMRO 21
Kenneth W. Olan, Senior Executive VP, CRMO, First Victoria Bank 22
Case Studies 25
DenizBank: The Game-bank 25
Tradition Converted into a Game: Promise to Action 25
Create Your Island 25
Ramadan Campaign 26
Refer a Friend a Member Get Member Programme for a Mobile Wallet 26
Dig & Win 26
Games to Increase Brand Awareness 27
Games to Be Launched Soon 27
AkBank: Gamication Strategies and Global Examples 30
Akbanks Approach on Gamication 30
Trained and Early Adaptor: Turkey 31
Turkish Banks and Gamication 31
Akbank and Gamication 32
Conclusion 33
About the Author 34
About IND 34
About Efma 34
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Preface
Efma and IND are proud to present their joint white paper: Gamication for an
Engaging Banking Experience. The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader
with an insight into the experience and strategy of banks in terms of gamication - the
application of game mechanics to non-game environments - in the nancial services
industry. The analysis has been carried out on the basis of a digital banking survey
with 56 respondents (banks) and on several interviews with bankers.
Banks know that customer experience has an increasingly important role in the
competition and differentiation among nancial service providers. Customer experience
is a particular key issue in online services as customers face innovative and eye
catching services day by day and they expect at least the same level of service from
their nancial service providers.
And this is the point where gamication comes into the picture: it can be a great tool
to strengthen the emotional link between the bank and its customers. This is an extra
connection that could also result in higher engagement with the users.
Gamication has emerged as an important trend, and it has proved successful in other
industries. But what about the banking industry? Have banks already implemented
gamication and if yes, what are their experiences? If not, do they have plans of
including gamication in their business strategy? These are the questions we attempt to
answer in our white paper and we hope that you will nd these insights both fascinating
and useful.
Balzs Vinnai
CEO
IND Group
Patrick Desmars
Secretary General
Efma
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Executive Summary
Gamication is a concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications in order to make
them more fun and engaging. Game mechanics are important because they increase ones productivity
and engagement.
Case studies from other industries show that gamication can contribute to business goals of a company
very effectively. We see a successful deployment of gamication in education for motivating students,
in customer service for motivating agents, or in building a community where gamication is in charge
of the engagement of the community members.
The survey carried out among 56 banks indicated that there is a signicant difference in the judgement
of gamication across regions: banks in South and East Europe are more positive towards gamication
than banks in North and West Europe.
Some European banks (such as BBVA, Akbank and Denizbank) play a leading role when it comes to
gamication in the nancial services industry. They have already managed to acquire new customers
and sell nancial products by implementing this new approach. Despite the proven cases when
gamication plays a central role in customer acquisition, most banks consider it a tool only for increasing
the loyalty of the existing clientele. Thus banks with a mature clientele put a bigger emphasis on
gamication than the ones that have been launched just a few years ago.
The research also revealed that banks in Western and Northern Europe are aware of gamication and
its increasing importance, but most of them are still considering how to incorporate this approach into
their multichannel strategy. However, gamication in the banking industry has several forms: it can mean
gaming, loyalty programmes, or user experience banks apply the approach that ts their very own
strategy the best. Gamication does not have international best practices; its implementation varies
country by country according to the local traditions and the attitude of the customers.
The following banks revealed their strategy and experience about gamication during our research:
Akbank (Turkey) launched among others a social game for its SME customers
Alior Bank (Poland) does not consider gamication as a key tool in its strategy
Budapest Bank (Hungary) believes mobile is the perfect channel for gamication
Denizbank (Turkey) reveals impressive gures on its gamication campaigns
ZUNO Bank (Slovakia) states gamication is their way to communicate to the customers
BBVA Bank (Spain) convinces customers to switch to the online channel
ABN AMRO (Netherlands) puts customers on the central stage
First Victoria (USA) uses gamication for educating and motivating their staff
Banks that have already applied gamication monitor the return very closely and say that gamication is
an investment that generates a positive return. They expect their investments in gamication to pay off in
3-4 years. All these banks will assign an increasing importance to gamication in their digital strategy in
the coming years.
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The goal isnt gameplay, its on-going engagement.
Rajat Paharia, founder and CPO of Bunchball
Introduction
Gamication as a concept goes back to the early 21st century, but it has become a trend just during
the past couple of years. As people spend more time online, it is becoming vital to attract them, to keep
their interest and to inspire them. Gamication is a perfect way to motivate people since it appeals to our
innate human desires: the desire for competing and winning and for making emotional connections.
We are convinced that its high time to learn more about gamication. A quick look at Google Trends
shows us that the public interest in gamication has skyrocketed in the past few years:
*
The purpose of this paper is to gain an overview on how gamication helps nancial service providers to
achieve their business goals, and how some banks have already implemented gamication. We also look
into our crystal ball to see the future of gamication in the nancial services industry.
Denition: What Is Gamication?
As Gamication.org denes it, Gamication is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-
game applications to make them more fun and engaging
1
.

Alternatively, Bunchball says that gamication uses game mechanics to help you drive participation,
engagement and loyalty on your online property, site or community.
2
Gamication means something extra, something challenging and rewarding added to an online service
or content, and it aims to increase the users engagement and loyalty.
1
http://www.gamication.org/
2
http://www.bunchball.com/products/gamication
2011 2013
*
The numbers on the graph reect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total
number of searches done on Google over time. They dont represent absolute search volume numbers, because
the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point,
or 100. When we dont have enough data, 0 is shown.
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3
http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/25/devhub-scores-engagement-increase-by-gamifying-its-web-site-creation-tools/
4
5
http://www.snowy.com/pdf/Teams_V_indiv_Incentives_feb2013.pdf
6
http://www.arcaris.com
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Theory Behind: Why Does Gamication Work?
Online businesses that implemented gamication say the approach helped them motivate their
customers to engage more. DevHub, which offers a free website builder tool, announced in August 2010
that they have increased the number of users who completed their online tasks from 10% to 80% after
adding gamication elements
3
. Thats an impressive result, but how and why does gamication work?
Psychologists say that game mechanics increase ones productivity and engagement. What are these
game mechanics? Theyre tools that leverage our innate desires for competition, achievement, status,
reward, self-expression and altruism. They include:

Earning badges, trophies and achievements
Tracking and rewarding online activity
Competing for position on league tables
Creating virtual identities for self-expression
Collaborating as part of a team
Spreading the word via Facebook and Twitter
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Thus gamication works because it utilizes our innate desires and needs. These desires are a key to
motivating individuals. However, motivating individuals is not only important to single customers, but also
for teams, e.g. customer service centres. Researchers say that a well-balanced performance-reward
programme consists of 75% emphasis on individual behaviour and 25% emphasis on team behaviour.
5

This is why several gamication platforms target groups successfully. One example of this is PlayVox
6
,
a people management platform for contact centres. Arcaris Inc, the developer of PlayVox, claims that this
platform increases the efciency of customer service centres signicantly.
All in all, gamication is built on peoples fundamental needs and desires - among others
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for reward,
status, achievement, self-expression, competition, and altruism, which are important both for individual
and team motivation.
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Start with your objectives, focus on your customers and gamify purposefully
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Esteban Contreras, Social Media Manager of Samsung Electronics America
Case Study of an Electronic Giant:
Samsung Nation
Samsung Nation is a great example of successful gamication implementation. Samsung Nation is the
exciting new social loyalty program where you earn badges, move up the ranks and have fun discovering
everything Samsung.com has to offer.
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as Samsung puts it.
Samsungs website already had tens of millions visitors daily and they wanted to increase the
engagement and the number of product reviews by their visitors. Samsungs aim was to focus on the
users already engaged with their brand and to attain a higher engagement from these customers.
The electronic giant contracted Badgeville to implement its gamication platform which involves game,
reputation and social mechanics combined with behaviour analytics in order to motivate users to achieve
the desired goals. The visitors gain badges and scores by visiting and reviewing products, by watching
videos or by participating in surveys. As a result of implementing the gamication platform, the number
of product reviews increased hundreds of percents per month according to Badgeville.
One Sunny Day in Samsung Nation
Users who want to take part in the game need to rst register, which is very easy and you can also
use your Facebook account to register. After the registration you can see a welcome screen
showing your score
8
http://blog.badgeville.com/2012/02/20/ny-times-features-badgeville-customer-samsung-nation/
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http://www.samsung.com/us/samsungnation/
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and also some hints on how to start earning points:
The newbie receives a clear guidance on what to do and how to earn points it is very useful and you
can start earning points immediately. You can read articles, become a fan of Samsungs Facebook site,
register Samsung products, submit a product review, ask or answer questions in the Q&A session, watch
videos and so forth.
You are being challenged!
Whenever you unlock a badge, you will see a notication pop-up at the bottom of your screen:
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Why earn points? First of all, its fun. You never know when that pop-up notication appears at the bottom
of the page and informs you that you have earned another 100 points. Secondly racking up points and
unlocking badges will enable you to qualify for special sweepstakes and for extra content.
On the leader board you can see your progress and the score of the best players.
The key to success in this gamication example is that its entirely integrated into Samsungs website
and online services, and that its simply beautiful. You are inspired to click on each badge, to see
whats behind them, and to understand how to unlock them. And of course a sweepstake for a
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is also motivating.
As Esteban Contreras, Samsung Electronics Americas Social Media Manager, puts it: Samsung
Nation is a social loyalty program for Samsung customers and fans. Anyone can unlock badges,
earn points, level up and have fun discovering everything Samsung.com has to offer.
A value proposition banks also would favour.
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Games are everywhere, and banks need to take notice
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JJ Hornblass, bankinnovation.net
Our Research on Gamication
in the Banking Industry
Whether gamication will y in the banking industry depends on whether banks believe in it and whether
they are ready to invest in it. We searched for the answers to these questions in our research by carrying
out a survey among 56 banks and interviewing several bankers on the subject.
About the Questionnaire
In the framework of a wider survey we could ask banks also about their attitude towards gamication
and we were provided with 56 answers.
The banks received two gamication related questions:
Have you considered applying gamication elements to any of your digital channels?
How effective do you think gamication can be for increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty,
and for increasing sales efciency?
Banks Plans About Implementing Gamication in Their Digital Channels
The rst question about gamication was: Have you considered applying gamication elements to any
of your digital channels? The banks could choose from four options:
Already applying
Considering
Not considering
Dont know
The following table displays the number of the answers per region:
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http://bankinnovation.net/2010/11/games-without-frontiers-the-role-fun-should-play-in-banking/
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0
5
10
15
25
No answer Don't know Not considering Considering Already
No region North America Sub-Saharan Africa
Middle East & North Africa West Europe
South Europe
East Europe North Europe
South and Central America
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The distribution of the answers within each region:
Based on the answers the hottest regions for gamication are South and East Europe. In these regions
a denite majority of the respondents have either already applied or are considering applying gamication
elements. Least popular gamication is in Western Europe, where more than half of the survey
participants are not considering implementing it.
If we examine the answers from the banks size point of view, the results indicate that the bigger the bank
is the more important gamication seems to be for them:
And last but not least the results can also be analysed according to the income level of the given country:
The results show that banks operating in mid-income level countries favour gamication more than banks
in high or low income level countries.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
No answer Dont know Not considering Considering Already applying
No region South and Central
Americas
North
America
Sub-Saharan
Africa
Middle East
& North Africa
West
Europe
South
Europe
East
Europe
North
Europe
Small banks Medium banks Large banks
3 = <$15000 2 = $15000-$30000 1 = >$30000
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Gamication and Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty and Sales Efciency
The second question about gamication in the survey was: How effective do you think gamication
can be for increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, and for increasing sales efciency?.
The survey participants could give a score to assess the importance of gamication in the following
business objectives:
Increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty
Increasing sales efciency
The respondents could choose from 1 to 7, where 1 marked a very low and 7 a very high importance:
1=Very low
2=Low
3=Somewhat low
4=Average
5=Somewhat high
6=High
7=Very high
The average of the responses for increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty was 4,3. The result
indicates that banks thought gamication had an average importance in increasing the customer
satisfaction and loyalty.
The average for increasing sales efciency was 4,0, which is also an average importance, but lower than
the loyalty. The result shows that banks do not consider gamication as a very efcient sales tool.
However, the distribution of answers indicates that there are signicant differences among the banks
opinions in different regions.
Regional differences of the answers to the question: How effective do you think gamication can be
for increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty?
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East and South Europe are the most positive towards gamication, for them gamication is somewhat
important in customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, Western European banks are very sceptic
towards gamication, they think that the importance of gamication in customer satisfaction and loyalty is
somewhat low.
Regional distribution of the answers for the second question: How effective do you think gamication
can be for increasing sales efciency?
East and South Europe are the most positive again; although banks do not give a high importance to
gamication as a sales booster.
Conclusion
Based on these responses received from banks its obvious that they are aware of the gamication
phenomenon and want to incorporate it into their strategy. However, they do not expect to generate a lot
of extra business from this approach. This expectation contradicts with the experience of those banks
that have already seen how gamication can support their business objectives the chapter on the case
studies will introduce two banks that state gamication did generate extra revenue for them.
Although there are signicant differences among the regions, banks consider gamication a means
of increasing customer loyalty rather than an acquisition tool.
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The keywords for gamication are education, engagement, loyalty and active channel usage
Lszl Szirki, Business Support and Development Leader, Budapest Bank (a GE Capital company)
Gamication for us is a way of communicating with the customer
Martin Kolesar, Web and UX Team Manager, ZUNO Bank
Interviews
In addition to the gamication questionnaire also structured interviews were carried out in order to learn
about the banks attitude towards gamication. These interviews were a great opportunity for banks
to reveal their gamication related opinions, experiences and strategies.
Lszl Szirki, Business Support and Development Leader, Budapest Bank
(a GE Capital company)
Gamication has several denitions. Can you please dene what gamication
means to your bank?
Gamication is a motivation tool that inspires users to pay special attention to certain products and to use
them more frequently. Gamication also has an educational effect as people get to know the products
better in a fun environment and if they are familiar with the product, they will use it more actively. All in all
the keywords for gamication are education, engagement, loyalty and active channel usage.
What are the present and the future roles of gamication in banks strategy?
Gamication has its place in our banks digital strategy. We understand that people do not spend less
time in front of their TV set, but watching TV has turned to a multitasking activity: people are playing with
their mobile phones and tablets while watching TV. Another important nding is that people often watch
advertisements on their mobile. And this is where gamication comes in: mobile is a perfect tool
for gamication since we think that people prefer doing game-like activities in their slot times or parallel
with other activities, like watching TV.
Another important trend is social media. The role of the social media is growing. We have launched
a Facebook game, where customers are to build words from the letters we give them. These words
are related to our investment products, thus this is an educative sales tool for us. Another way of using
gamication is rewarding our customers for reviews and even for complaints and rewarding those
members of our community who answer their questions.
Is gamication a pure electronic service or is it a cross-channel approach?
Gamication is denitely a cross-channel approach with an online focus. It is a cross-channel service
because if a customer uses internet bank, it doesnt necessarily mean that he or she is an online-focused
customer. Customers with a branch focus prefer gaming in the branch, or seeing badges on their account
statement they receive by mail. However, gamication is an online technique and therefore it relies heavily
on electronic services. This also means that design and user experience are essential when it comes to
gamication.
Do you distinguish between gamication and loyalty programs? And if yes, how?
We also have a loyalty program where we give rewards or gifts to people who use their credit card
frequently. Weve seen that certain customers can be activated this way while others do not care about
this program. Maybe they dont even know that we offer a program like that. The challenge of these types
of programmes is to design them in a way that results in a win-win situation for both the bank and the
customers.
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Why do you think gamication is important for customers?
Customers spend several hours a day browsing on the internet and they expect their bank to offer
electronic services that are on the same level as other online services, or even better. Since gamication
is spreading on the internet our customers would like to see the same on our website.
Can gamication be productized by software vendors? What do you expect from vendors when
it comes to gamication?
Yes, gamication can be delivered by a software vendor, but it has to be implemented in a way that
provides unique and cross-channel user experience along with a superb design.
What do you expect from a gamication project in terms of ROI?
I denitely think that gamication is an investment by the banks, the return of which can and should be
controlled. I do not believe that gamication is a tool just for building the banks brand. I am sure that
all banks will test this mean in the coming years.
What is your experience with gamication? How are the rst customer reactions?
There are certainly customer segments we can reach with gamication and there are some others we
cannot reach with this tool.
Especially younger generations can be attracted and engaged with gamication, because they are
familiar with this experience from other portals. Therefore we must build gamication into our strategy
in the mid-term, which means between 3 and 5 years.
In my opinion the loyalty programmes work better with telecommunications companies. If you have a gold
card it supports you in every interaction with your provider. In other words, the telco companies manage
loyalty on a customer level while banks manage it on a product level. For instance, we give higher rates
on deposits for those customers who transfer their salary to us. Customers like this offering, but it doesnt
result in higher level of loyalty. Programs that gave advantage on the customer level and not on the
product level were more successful. Some of our small business clients received a VIP card, which meant
that they were appointed a personal advisor with the bank and had a priority when they visited the branch.
This programme was extremely successful. I would like to see these programmes being integrated into
a solid loyalty program under the umbrella of gamication.
Celina Waleskiewicy, Head of New Banking Area, Alior Bank
Gamication has several denitions. Please dene what gamication means to your bank.
Gamication enables customers to take part in games that allow them to win rewards for accomplishing
certain tasks. These rewards can be redeemed in different ways, the customer can for instance change
the conditions of a nancial product into better ones (such as higher APRs) or the customer can receive
smaller gifts.
Do you distinguish between gamication and loyalty programs?
With gamication we can probably win much more than just the loyalty of customers. Gamication is
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based on peoples natural desires for competition and the willingness to share their achievements with
other people, for example by showing off their status in a game in social media. By involving customers
in a game we are giving them the opportunity to tell the world how good they are and to feel special about
it (which is not possible in an ordinary loyalty program). We as a game founder achieve additional brand
communication.
What are the present and future roles of gamication in banks strategy?
We are still uncertain whether gamication is important for us or not. We also see that this topic has
become fashionable recently, but we dont just want to follow a trend, but rather make protable
innovations. And it is not very easy to create and launch protable programmes.
What do you expect from a gamication project in terms of ROI? How do you calculate the ROI?
It depends on the business case. The key performance indicator (KPI) of gamication could be for
instance a higher level of customer acquisition but the question is how protable the new customers
are. Another KPI could be a higher usage of our products. The way we calculate ROIs of various
investments always depends on the business case and on the assumptions of the given business case.
Can gamication be productized by software vendors? What do you expect from vendors
when it comes to gamication?
Gamication can be dened in many ways. Sometimes you dont need any software solutions for that.
Gamication is rather about marketing and communications. Or gamication can be about the product
itself, like in the example of receiving better conditions.
I am not so optimistic about gamications future in the banking industry, it may be just a short term
fashion. I am sure that gamication is not the one and only approach. This approach may be familiar
for the younger generations, but it is not accepted by the elderly people.
However, we also think that gamication can be a successful approach for us. Thus we have developed
a gamication app for mobile phones that is now in its test phase. The bottom line of this app is that the
user can go through the different levels of the game and by reaching a new level he or she receives an
extra 0,01% APR on his/her deposit. But it is subject to the recent economic circumstances whether it
is worth it for the bank to launch the game or not.
Martin Kolesar, Web and UX Team Manager, ZUNO Bank
Gamication has several denitions. Can you please dene what gamication means to your bank?
Gamication means bringing more fun into an activity such as banking. But banking does not have to feel
like playing a game; it only has to use some elements of a game. Gamication is rather the way the bank
communicates to its customers. Any elements on the website or in the online bank that provide that extra
fun can be considered gamication. Gamication is a comprehensive approach to all channels, thus if
the bank decides to implement it, all electronic channels should be redesigned. Currently our approach
is to try various simple game elements and see what works. Then we will be able to create a holistic
gamication strategy for all channels.
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Do you distinguish between gamication and loyalty programs?
Gamication and loyalty are two different things. Loyalty programs can be gamied, but gamication is
much more than a pure loyalty program. We are currently developing our loyalty program, but since we
are quite a new bank, developing and selling new products has priority over loyalty programmes.
Did you examine any other, non-nancial industries, for how gamication improves customer
experience there?
We started discussing and analysing gamication 2,5 years ago. The most notable player that time was
Foursquare that tried to nd ways to incorporate gamication into social location sharing.
From the UX point of view the banking industry is lagging behind many other industries. So we have the
luxury of taking proven concepts from other industries and adjusting them to banking industry.
I think that the social media provides us with several good examples, such as LinkedIn or Google Plus,
that motivate their users for instance to complete their prole. Fitness apps, such as Strava, are also
very good at motivating their users: you can compete, receive badges and so forth.
We use gamication in our design and in our online marketing campaigns. One of our most successful
online marketing programmes is called myFRIENDS Plus
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. It has some aspects of gamication. Actually
it is a member-get-member program: if a customer gets a new customer, he receives a nancial reward.
So we use the social aspect to acquire new customers. We have a microsite for this programme on our
website where our customers can invite their friends to our bank via e-mail. The friend receives an e-mail
with a referral code. When the friend becomes a customer of ours, he enters the referral code and they
both receive 10 EUR if the new customer meets the criteria. This is one of the best performing sources
of new customers. However, from the gamication point of view, the question is whether a tangible
reward of 10 EUR can still be considered a proper example of gamication.
Another campaign we launched is related to our mobile banking app
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.
The message of the campaign is that you can bank anywhere with our
mobile banking app. So we asked our customers to take a picture of a place
where they have used this app and to send it to us - this is the picture of his
or her very personal ZUNO branch. The community can vote on the pictures
on Facebook and the winner receives a prize
a trip to the Ice Hotel in Sweden or a GoProCamera.
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http://www.zuno.sk/myfriends/ or http://www.zuno.cz/myfriends/
12
http://www.zuno.cz/mobilebanking/ or http://www.zuno.sk/mobilebanking/
Zuno mobile bank
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As mentioned, for us gamication is a way of communicating with the customer. Sometimes this is a
minor funny detail, like the name of our demo user, which is Albert Ninja. But I could also mention our
innovative charts, which show the nancial progress of our customer, or the easy-to-use lending and
renancing calculators, which are really engaging for our customers. Another game-like example is that
we visualize the insurance products we offer with a knight in armour: the higher level of insurance you
choose, the better your armour is. This is an excellent example of how you can communicate complex
products in a simple way with game-like elements.
Level 1: No insurance Level 2: Death and disability insurance
Level 3: Inability to work insurance Level 4: Loss of employment insurance
Working with money is rarely just about fun and people are usually worried to work with money.
By introducing fun into these activities, you can turn the activities into fun and enable your customers
to work more relaxed with their money.
On the other hand, banks should be careful with gamication, as too much of games could destroy
the customers trust towards a bank. The extent to which you can gamify your services depends
on the target group, of course.
What do you expect from a gamication project in terms of ROI? How do you/ would you
calculate the ROI?
The major threat for banking is that it becomes a commodity. And if it becomes a commodity banks can
compete only with their prices, which may damage the industry. User experience can be the differentiator
enabling us to compete on other than the price level.
Can gamication be productized by software vendors? What do you expect from vendors
when it comes to gamication?
Gamication can be offered by a vendor, but a high level of customization ability is required,
because gamication has to t the bank. If your gamication is too standard, you risk slipping
into the commodity market.
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lvaro Morn Alonso, Innovation Manager, BBVA
BBVA game is an application designed to motivate the customers to switch to online banking. It contains
gamication elements, but it is not a game. Within this application customers are awarded for watching
training videos, using online services, ordering new online services or inviting their friends to use BBVA
online services.
What are the present and future roles of gamication in the banks strategy?
We started our gamication project 1,5 year ago. Our aim is to move the day-to-day transactions of our
clientele to the online channels. This is important because only about 25% of the customers use the
online banking channel in Spain. Weve already had videos on our portal promoting our online banking
services, but only a small percentage of our customers have switched to online bank. We also wanted to
engage our customers better and help them understand the benets of the online channels.
Weve experienced in the past that a lot of our customers try the online channels, but if they are not taught
how to use it, they drop it. Gathering feedback from the customers was also an important goal of this
project.
The rst launch was done without a big campaign; we just wanted to understand how our customers
react to it. We also wanted to see if gamication could be applied to banking. Getting to know the
customer is an important goal of gamication: customer proling, upselling and social aspects are
important parts of it.
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The customers get challenges and receive badges if they meet the challenges. Customers also take
part in prize draws where they can win items like iPad. Transparency is very important for gamication,
therefore our prize draws are linked to national lottery draws: we use the national lottery numbers to
nominate the winners of our draw.
Customers also receive points that can be used to purchase movie or music tickets.
We also have a new gamication project in its pilot phase: we incentivize the usage of ATMs and cards.
BBVA game is both a collaborative and competitive environment for the customers, as competition is a
very important element of gamication. There are several leaderboards (global, by city, friends etc.) and
these leaderboards fuel social engagement and competition.
Our gamication system has more than 100,000 users. We have this only in Spain today, but we plan to
roll it out in other BBVA subsidiaries. The results are very good: for instance the number of our Facebook
fans has tripled. Weve achieved our goals, for instance our customers watched 16 times more videos
from BBVA compared to last year. The average time in our online bank increased by 60% and the number
of users in the online bank increased by 5%. We also measure our customers satisfaction with our bank,
which increased by almost 20%. Our customers rate BBVA to 4.1 on average on the scale of 1 to 5, where
5 is the best rating they can give.
Gamication is not a big banking project and so we used just a small amount of resources. We take an
agile approach where we can change the project quickly if required based on the customer feedback.
The rst phase of the project took 5 months and we have one or two new releases every month.
21
Jaspar Roos, Inspiration Catalyst, ABN AMRO
Gamication means adding play elements to a process or communications that improve impact and
transferability of a non-game product or service.
Yes, we do. The two can interact, but they live separately. Based on the target group you have to decide
whether you want to increase loyalty in a client relationship and how do you want to do that. Sometimes
it can be done with nancial incentives, sometimes with invitations to events and sometimes with gaming
elements. The advantage in gamication is that customers see it as a more natural way. The difculty is to
know how to gamify as a bank, as game and bank are two words that seldom appear together in the
mind of a customer.
We put our customers on the central stage right now. For banks this means better listening, simplifying
the procedures, etc. All this can be achieved with the use of gamication tools.
Most gamication elements will be software based. This makes perfect sense to me.
What do you expect from a gamication project in terms of ROI? How do you/ would
you calculate the ROI?
Gamication should be done in the context of a product or service. There are several ways to measure
it and you can extend those by looking at NPS scores or happiness scores at work. However, we should
expect a rise in sales or a decrease in costs of communication, helpdesk questions, etc.

Did you examine any other, non-nancial industries for examples on how gamication
improves customer experience?
My role is to talk to other non-nancial industries. There are many famous examples like Zappos or
gaming companies who really understand how to interact with their customers.
When my team started with gamication six years ago, it was extremely new and effective. Nowadays, it
feels like a hygiene factor. Without gamication it becomes very difcult to improve nancial literacy, for
example.
What do you think, what elds should banks focus on with their innovations?
Wow, so many areas. Just to name a few: crowd-related services, peripherals and impact investing.

How can banks defend themselves against new providers?
Banks need to change their culture from the top to the bottom. And for the rest, accept that role of the
bank will be smaller in the future.
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Can banks catch up with start-ups in innovations?
Sometimes yes, but not always. However, start-ups have the disadvantage that they do not have leverage
and they dont always put the customers rst by operating only online. It is a role for the bank, but banks
should also preserve elements like ofine and customer intimacy. Without those catching up would be
difcult.
Kenneth W. Olan, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Retail and Marketing Ofcer,
First Victoria Bank
Gamication is a way of engaging people in the brand through an activity that promises some kind of
reward especially if one performs well. It brings an important emotional element into play by creating
an engagement that is fun, entertaining and results in some form of what I call ego satisfaction
especially if you are doing it well. When you gamify something its all about creating the possibility of
winning, in some way, Winning can include a nancial payout, additional prestige, additional privileges or
even just a great sense of accomplishment, but there is always an underlying motivator.
People are more involved and inspired when something is effectively gamied. Game mentality creates
richer involvement and a deeper emotional connection by appealing to the child in you; the need to be
loved and appreciated. Gamication can mean playing a game, but the substance the driving force
behind it is the ego. There has to be a feel-good aspect simply for participating and a potentially
something even better for winning.
In our case, weve used gamication for everything from encouraging customers to express their feelings
about the bank on social media to rewards for product usage and to encourage visits to the banking
centers. The payoff for the individual starts with a feeling of accomplishment for playing. Customers have
a greater willingness to play if they know that doing so may result in some form of award. The same
dynamic applies to employees, of course.
Loyalty programs are simply a form of gamication. A good rule of thumb is if something involves you
and inspires you, youre more likely to want to do it more often,. A rewards program requires involvement
to receive the rewards, and the prospect of being rewarded is what inspires you. That said, if something
involves you, but does not inspire you, it is not a quality game. It becomes a task. Likewise, if something
inspires you, but it is too difcult to do or win, it is not a successful game either, since you will not want
play it. For instance, if you see it as nearly impossible to gather a certain amount of loyalty points to
achieve something, you will lose interest in trying. Gamication and loyalty programs should be realistic
and desirable.
What are the present and future roles of gamication in your banks strategy?
Weve introduced gamication into our organization on several levels. First, gamication has an important
role in the engagement of the employees. They contribute more to the organization if their processes are
gamied. Gamication also has a role in learning: it is the way we teach our frontline tellers to uncover
more about customers needs and to understand the motive behind a customers seemingly ordinary
question or comment. For instance if the customer is asking: Until when are you open today? the
frontline teller answers, Until 3 oclock. But if the banker uncovers what the customer really needs,
he could answer, Well, our lobby is open until 3 oclock, but we do have a number of ways you can
23
conveniently bank after that time? May I tell you about them? The banker might then go on to explain
mobile banking, online banking or even ATMs.
To help our front line staff open their minds to respond more
effectively, we created a card game called Face Value. In the game
the employee draws a card with a possible customer comment on
it. If he or she responds appropriately and uncovers the underlying
customer need, he gets points. We gamied learning in this case,
because to win, one must broaden his or her ability to understand
the needs of the customer. A very important skill, indeed!
Weve also devised a way to gamify broadening customer
relationships by increasing their visits to the branch so we can talk
to them. We created something called a V-Source Center that
adds additional value-added utility to the branch.
V-Source Centers offer amenities (like photocopying, coin counting,
faxing and so on). While some of the services are free, to use others
one must a have a V-Source Card; a stored value card on which a
customer can collect points based on the depth of their relationship.
The aim of these cards is to encourage our customers to visit the
branches not only for banking but also for other services. The more
banking products the customer has with us the more points he
gets on his V-Source Card. Its a form of rewards program that also
stimulates sales opportunities.
As I alluded to earlier, we also use gamication to promote our bank
on YouTube (our YouTube channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/
FirstVictoriaBankYT). Our aim is to get our customers to promote
our bank more effectively by doing live testimonials. We ask our
customers to tell us why they like First Victoria and record their
answer. Some of our customers just talk about the bank and others
have given a performance. For instance some customers rapped
or sang about their afnity for the bank.
To encourage customers to record their testimonials, we introduced
something called the VIC Awards where we created categories for
the videos like most entertaining video, most creative video and so
forth. As of today we have 132 videos on YouTube from our customers.
The video performing best in a category wins a prize. Awards are also
given to employees for things like the best production, clearest video
and so forth.
After each video is shot its reviewed by our marketing team.
They upload the video to YouTube and send the link to the respective
customer notifying him or her that their video is now in contention for
an award. The customer, of course, sends the link to his friends and
asks them to like his video. As a next step, well allow our customers
to shoot videos themselves, in their own environments, which we
believe will increase the amount of content we receive.
To get our customers more engaged in the branch, we have a
bell inside each location, and customers can ring it when they feel
24
that theyve received great service. If someone rings the bell, we ask him or her to record a video.
Success certainly depends on the local staff whose task it is to convince the customer to give his best
performance.
Regarding electronic delivery channels we motivate our customers to use their debit cards more
frequently through gamication. For instance they can win a cash reward if they increase their usage to a
certain level. We also reward our customers, who switch from paper statements to electronic statements,
with money.
What do you expect from a gamication project in terms of ROI? How do you/ would you
calculate the ROI?
We monitor the results of gamication continuously. We have testimonials from our customers on YouTube
which have been viewed over 7,500 times already. Each view has an economic value. We also measure
the product referrals coming from staff who are involved in the Face Value game. If we look at the
V-Source Centers, we monitor how many times people have reloaded their points and how many points
have been redeemed. We also compare the results of the branches with a V-Source Center to branches
without one.
We plan on continuing to innovate gamied engagements through the on-line collaboration platform
weve developed. By getting our entire staff involved in creating these programs were certain that well
get increased employee buy-in, and that will translate into greater customer engagement.
25
Games make people feel good
Grhan am, SVP, Digital Generation Banking Group
Case Studies
Two banks with a signicant experience on gamication shared their strategy and experience on
gamication with us. These banks put emphasis on gamication and are very proud on the results
they have achieved; due to the outstanding results both banks will assign gamication a key role
in their strategy in the future.
DenizBank: The Game-bank
DenizBank was founded in 1997 by acquiring a state-owned maritime sector bank from Privatization
Administration and its the 5th largest private bank in Turkey today. From having only one branch in the
beginning, today DenizBank belongs to the Sberbank group with a range of more than 600 branches
in 3 countries.
Gamication has a key role in the Banks Digital strategy; it is considered a very effective asset for
acquiring new customers and for increasing brand awareness within its target groups. DenizBanks
gamication concept is based on gaming, which is very popular in Turkey and ts into the cultural tradition
well. Online games are very popular in Turkey even among elderly generations. This chapter introduces
the games DenizBank implemented to increase the awareness of its brand or to acquire new customers.
Tradition Converted into a Game: Promise to Action
The Promise to Action game is based on the Turkish tradition of people promising to do something.
What can be promised in the case of a bank? People can promise for instance that they buy a product,
log onto their online bank, or use a product or an ATM. And they can make this promise also via
a mobile app!
The Promise to Action game is running on a platform that also contains a badge system. The bank
received 5 300 promises so far, 3 142 of which came via the mobile app. The bank received 832 payment
product usage promises, 602 Internet Banking login promises and 755 ATM banking usage promises.
And what happens if one doesnt keep his promise? He receives a call from the call centre and is kindly
asked why he hasnt kept the promise, and how the bank can help him to do so.
Create Your Island
Create your Island is a Facebook application (game) similar to Farmville. Users can reach the
application by liking DenizBanks Facebook page. The gamer chooses an avatar of DenizBank
spokespeople rst, then he starts as a novice farmer and later becomes an experienced one.
26
Users can invite their Facebook friends and see the performance level of their friends. The game is based
on DenizBanks Action to Promise and Direct Action infrastructures that provide the customers a
chance to increase the production rate of the fruits and vegetables by promising to acquire a DenizBank
products (like credit/debit card, fastPay mobile wallet) etc.). For instance customers can promise or
directly apply for a Consumer Loan by entering their GSM and citizenship numbers. In order to apply
or promise for a product in the game, the players are visiting the DenizBank branch which is virtually
located on an island (see the picture above).
Thanks to this game the Bank gained 216.000 additional Facebook fans, 1000 Facebook banking users,
3175 credit card applications, 1017 consumer loan applications, 775 SME card applications and 1272
fastPay mobile wallet applications.
Ramadan Campaign
A Facebook game application was launched in the beginning of Ramadan Bairam (celebration) and the
game was available until Ramadan ended. The application is designed with traditional Turkish muppet
characters, Karagz and Hacivat.
During the campaign the customers could share their old Ramadan Bairam stories. One of the authors
of the highest rated stories won a dinner for two in a luxurious restaurant. At the end of the 4 weeks one
of the lucky storytellers won a 4-day holiday for two in Nice.
The aim of this campaign was to acquire more Facebook fans and the bank gained 35,000 fans thanks
to this campaign.
Refer a Friend a Member Get Member Programme for a Mobile Wallet
The aim of this game was to spread the new generation mobile wallet app fastPay within the clientele
of the bank.
As a starting point the bank put 50 Turkish lira to each department and branch heads fastPay account.
They would then send this amount further to persons working in their reporting line. When the department
head sends the money via fastPay by entering the mobile phone number of the payee, the payee receives
a message about the money transfer transaction and downloads the app. After downloading the app,
he/she receives the amount and sends it further to another beneciary. The payer enters the phone
number of the new payee on the web site of the bank in order to prove that he/she referred a receiver who
becomes a fastPay user. The number of references is monitored by the system and those that collected
the most members received a reward, an iPad. The Bank also implement some clubs such as 100s, 200s
and 500s clubs and announced frequently the most successful users who managed to refer more than
100, 200 or 500 people. As result, the new mobile wallet app had 37000 new users after the rst 5 days.
Dig & Win
Dig&Win is a Facebook application (game) that could be reached by liking DenizBanks Facebook page.
Users could win an iPad or bonus points by nding the treasures hidden on an island by completing
a quiz before Robinson catches them. The result of the campaign was 42000 additional Facebook
fans and 1000 credit card applications
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Games to Increase Brand Awareness
Deniz Film Fest
Users could win an iPhone or a Sony Camera by sharing a movie made by them. The most liked movies
were ranked. The Bank gained 20000 additional Facebook fans.
Make a Fan
Make a Fan is a mobile app that enables users to dress a friend up in one
of the four biggest Turkish football teams uniforms and share it on
Facebook. The app had more than 7000 downloads so far.
Credit Card Bonus Mechanism
The Credit Card Bonus Mechanism is a credit card loyalty program. In
order to engage customers more with credit cards the bank launched to
be achieved campaigns: if the customer completes the challenges he
was given, he receives bonus points. A challenge can be for instance to
spend ve times more than 50 Turkish lira at fuel stations on ve different
days. When the challenge is accomplished, he receives 50 bonus points.
The result of the campaign was 10717 subscriptions to the campaign,
8770 challenges met and a total gross sale of 8481737 Turkish lira.
The total cost including communications was 850262 lira.
Games to Be Launched Soon
Which Subvention for SME customers
This game on a dedicated website for SME customers enables users to nd the best subvention provided
by government for their business. It begins by creating a prole on an island, then sailing with a boat
to another island where you specify the potential of having proper subvention by answering questions.
Finally youll see the result of the questionnaire by reaching the treasury box in the end (Which subvention
is proper for you?).
28
ideAlem Innovation Platform
ideAlem is an innovation and customer empowering platform located on Facebook that enables personal
and corporate users to have a business communion, share ideas and remarks, and taking part in
innovation activities and crowdsourcing. One of the nnovation activities is a money rewarded competition
through sharing innovative ideas. The ideas will be rewarded both according to the number of Facebook
likes the idea receives and to the jury evaluation.
Gold Field
Gold Field is a game application on Facebook similar to the mine sweeper game. The users can reach
the application by liking the DenizBank Facebook page.
The user starts to break the bubbles to collect all gold without the bombs exploding. If the player blows up
a bomb and loses his life, he can only continue playing by promising an action (e.g. follow DenizBank
Twitter page, request a life from a Facebook friend, download fastPay, enroll in Facebook banking).
The winner is planned to be rewarded a car. There will only be one winner and the probability of nishing
the game is low, therefore the prize is big.
29
What I Said and What Happened
This game is like a competition on Twitter about following hash tags or special accounts: questions are
asked within some predened hash tags. The one who gives the most correct answers will be the winner.
The Action to Promise infrastructure will be used in this competition too.
Fan Has the Ball
Fan has the Ball is a virtual football match between the big four Turkish football teams.
The goal is to support your team by using Twitter hash tags while the virtual match is being played.
There will be a football commentator on Twitter publishing tweets about the match.
Moreover, a website will be available for the game to follow the xture and points of the teams and to
see the virtual football eld. The outcome of the match is decided upon the number of tweets the teams
receive. The fans of the teams can increase the power of their tweets by promising actions to the bank
usually a product application.
Tweet Loan
Tweet Loan is a Twitter game aiming to increase the sales of consumer loans. Customers can publish
tweets and hash tags and if their number achieves a certain quota, the interest rate of the loan decreases.
Due to lower interest rate, the number of loan applications will increase which will result in an increasing
interest rate. Thus the game reects the logic of the markets where the price (the interest rate) ensures
the balance between the demand and the supply.
30
Akbank: Gamication Strategies
and Global Examples
Akbank is a private Turkish bank, operating a distribution network of 961 branches. After executing several
successful gamication campaigns, Bilgen Aldan (Direct banking-Digital Channels Management and
Marketing VP), Can Elbeyli, Gokay Dede (SVP Alternative Delivery Channels), Tuncay Tuncer
(Mobile Banking Unit Manager), from Akbank share their strategy and experience about gamication.
Akbanks Approach on Gamication
Gamication is usually used to make banking more fun and engaging and to drive specic consumer
behaviour towards more protable channels, or making prompt applications to loans and credit cards.
By denition gamication works by encouraging users to engage in desired behaviours, by showing
a path to mastery, and by taking advantage of humans psychological predisposition to engage in
gaming. Considering frequent application of loyalty programs (especially on credit cards), the main
rationale is similar.
However, make no mistake just because a bank gives out points, badges, discounts or other free perks,
it does not mean the main principles of gamication are being applied. Gamication puts in an additional
secret ingredient that engages customers in a more robust way. And it is not a light ingredient, rather
a taste dener that makes the channel and product more sticky using gaming psychology. Therefore,
loyalty is just one aspect of a successful gamication campaign.
There are several global examples of gamication where it is applied either as a standalone application
or through social media. Some interesting examples from other nancial services providers:
BBVA Game a Facebook app allowing customers to earn points by using BBVAs transactional
banking site. Those points can be redeemed for products and services (direct-download of music and
streaming of online movies) or applied to sweepstakes. As of a month ago, BBVA Game had attracted
over 37000 players vying for 28 prizes (iPad, Samsung Galaxy, concert tickets, etc.).
CIMB YOUth another Facebook-based app, this one for CIMB, a Malaysian bank. It involves a rather
complex scheme of credits called FUNds, issued for setting up accounts and promoting the bank.
PNC Punch the Pig A simple but no less signicant example of gamication from PNC Bank. When
someone is banking online, they just punch the piggy bank whenever it pops up and money of the
amount of the users choosing will transfer from their Spend account to their Growth account.
(For smartphone users, the punch is actually a shake.) Users decide how often the pig pops up,
or for more spontaneous types, PNC will surprise users by throwing it out there at random moments.
Foursquare Check-Ins some nancial institutions like DBS Bank in Asia and Dupaco Credit Union in
the U.S. have experimented with GPS-based social media platforms such as Foursquare.
Both rewarded people for making frequent branch visits by tracking check-ins.
With social networks and smartphones becoming more vital to consumers daily lives, gamication is
likely to become a more valid method in banks strategies in the distant future. As the Gartner Research
Report suggests; By 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will
gamify those processes.
31
Trained and Early Adaptor: Turkey
As gamication starts to take foot on a global level, banks in Turkey are catching up with this trend as well.
Turkey has always been an early adaptor country in banking and telecom; especially with credit cards
and loyalty programs.
Its a well-known fact that competition in the banking industry is very erce. Banks come up with
innovative ways for credit card models and rewarding mechanisms to become more relevant and
penetrate more into the daily lives of the customers in terms of needs and behaviours. Banks not only
utilize their own products, but also setup partnerships with major players of other industries such as
tourism, retail and food. Today, each and every bank in Turkey has credit card or monthly channel
interaction campaigns that reward customers with airline miles, discounts on retail chains or popular
restaurants.
In this regard, Turkish users bank or non-bank are somewhat educated and fast to comprehend the
details of new models and to respond to options that generate more value to them.
Therefore, we believe gamication methods will help serve banks purposes in different aspects as long
as they are applied the right amount towards the right group of customers through the right channel.
More supporting data in Turkey in terms of gaming:
Based on a recent report by GP Bullhound there are 22 million gamers in Turkey
(29% of the population)
There are 11 million paying gamers
Mobile phones/games account for 10% of the money spent on games while social games are at 9%.
Turkey also has a very active customer base regarding social media: 32 million Facebook users
(globally a country with 6th most FB users), and 9 million Twitter accounts.
Turkish Banks and Gamication
All above mentioned benets are valid reasons for Turkish banks to utilize gamication more frequently.
In summary the main motives for Akbank were:
Gamication is a proven model to encourage engagement
There is denitely a market for gamication (gamers, social media, mobile penetration & usage etc.)
Turkish consumers are well trained for gamication
Turkish banks keep trying to outdo each other in digital customer experience and gamication serves
this purpose
Akbank is convinced that gamication will be applied by several banks in Turkey and is probably here
to stay for a while. Gamication is not a standard approach and there is no cookbook how gamication
is to be implemented. Thus every marketer will have to judge, according to their goals, what gamication
means for them and how well gamication meets these goals.
32
Akbank and Gamication
Akbank has been including the gamication approach regularly in its standard marketing approach.
Below are the major activities the bank has performed that involve gamication:
Regular campaigns: As a means to increase awareness and trafc on direct channels (mobile and
web), Akbank launches 3rd party promotions targeting online shoppers. Customers who log onto web
or mobile channels receive discount coupons from the most well-known e-commerce sites in Turkey
(Morhipo.com, Lidyana.com etc.). The more customers use direct channels, more campaigns they will
be able to benet from (with increasing amounts of discounts). Some campaigns also include prize
draws, where lucky frequent users are rewarded with trips to China, Italy and so forth.
Mobile only campaign: The Bank launched a mobile only campaign, where SMS discount codes were
sent to customers who visited the mobile application. Discounts were valid on a private shopping site
(www.daybuyday.com). More than 300000 people joined this campaign.
Social SME Game: A Facebook game called The Social SME was launched targeting mainly SMEs.
Facebook followers who played the game were asked to build their virtual company / factory and to
manage it (like a small scale business version of SIMS). Gamers earned points for activities you would
perform as you grow your company, such as applying for a loan to buy machinery and equipment,
selling products and paying back the loan, opening new departments within the company and inviting
friends on Facebook to work for them in these departments (assigning managers and consultants
etc.). The game had 19 levels, and the earners of highest points received several prizes such as iPad
minis, Playstations and Samsung Smart TVs. The game was live for 5 weeks (as planned), and the
results were a huge success even though the period was short:
60000 people subscribed to the game, 52000 played it actively.
400000 visits (130000 unique) were received. 32% of these were rst-time visitors. Average visit
duration was 8 minutes.
Around 4000 unique gamers tweeted the game progress several times during the campaign period.
8000 people nished the game (all 19 levels).
Game was played from 38 different countries and 78 cities in Turkey.
The social game was also considered a try-out for a more complex gamication scenario.
The bank is working on new models where they integrate direct channel interactions and provide a holistic
approach that is mutually benecial. The banks strategy in this regard will be a longer term initiative,
where they make their services fun to use, along with educating the customers on the advantages
of using direct channels and making their services as sticky as possible.
33
Conclusion
The case studies prove that gamication is a perfect tool to engage users and to increase their loyalty.
There are several successful companies where gamication contributed to their business objectives
signicantly. The secret why gamication works is that it is based on our most fundamental desires
and motivations.
However, the nancial services sector is lagging behind other industries in terms of digital innovations.
Although some banks have already implemented gamication, most banks are only in the approach
evaluating phase. Those banks that are considering implementing gamication are about to use just
a light version of gamication by selecting a few elements of it, such as loyalty or user experience.
Real, 360gamication can hardly be seen in the nancial services industry.
On the other hand banks know that their customers enjoy gamication of the digital world and that they
expect it also from their nancial services providers. Thus banks need to do something on this eld. And
the outcomes of these pilot projects will determine whether banks will continue to implement gamication.
Gamication is not necessarily something big: it can start as small add-ons to recent electronic services
and be enhanced later based on the experiences.
Good news for gamication fans is that those banks that have already implemented gamication
elements into their online services plan to incorporate it further into their strategy on the long term.
However, gamication is something that should t into the culture and tradition of the local people;
Turkish banks may have a big success with their games in Turkey, but it may not work in other regions.
Gamication is about establishing an emotional connection between the bank and the customers. If this
connection is established via online games, badges or visual elements it may vary from bank to bank and
from country to country. The bottom line is to add an extra buzz to plain nancial transactions.
The rst banks to successfully solve this challenge will build up a more positive emotional connection
to their customers than those who fail to nd the proper approach. And after nding the right way other
banks will be forced to incorporate gamication into their strategy, or else customers will abandon them
and join other, friendlier providers. Gamication in the nancial services industry seems to be rather
a tool for customer engagement, loyalty and higher usage of digital channels while customer acquisition
or cross sales are less important benets of gamication.
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About the Author
Mark Gerzso has more than 10 years track record in the nancial services industry. He started his career
at SAP where he delivered projects for banks all over the globe. In 2006 he joined IND Group and he
was responsible for the product management of the company. Later he headed Bankfutura E-Finance
Research, an analyst company for the nancial services industry.
About IND
IND Group is a digital banking, PFM and payments technology software vendor for nancial institutions.
We focus on customer experience and our product portfolio meets the expectations of 21st century
users. We aim to transform online banking technology into web 2.0, and turn it into a sales and customer
engagement platform.
Growing since its inception in 1997, IND Group operates in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia,
Slovakia and the UK, and is represented through local business partners in CIS countries and in the
Middle East.
For more information: www.indgroup.eu or info@indgroup.eu
About Efma
As a global not-for-prot organisation, Efma brings together more than 3,300 retail nancial services
companies from over 130 countries. With a membership base consisting of almost a third of all large retail
banks worldwide, Efma has proven to be a valuable resource for the global industry, offering members
exclusive access to a multitude of resources, databases, studies, articles, news feeds and publications.
Efma also provides numerous networking opportunities through working groups, online communities and
international meetings.
For more information: www.efma.com or info@efma.com
35
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Gamification For An Engaging Banking Experience

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