Gamification for Bharat

Financial Inclusion through gamification

What is gamification?

According to Wikipedia , 'Gamification is the strategic attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities in order to create similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and engage users.'

For the first time, this term was used by designer Nick Pelling. In the early 2000s, he offered to promote products using game mechanics. Yu-kai Chou, a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur, an Author of Actionable Gamification. He was rated #1 among the Gamification Gurus Power 100 and three times won “Gamification Guru”. His Octa-analysis framework is widely used in industry.

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The point of gamification is to inspire users to engage with the content. Especially with tasks that are not enjoyable or user is not motivated to complete it. Simplest examples can be completing a course or saving money in bank. Successful gamification will give intrinsic motivation to the user such as becoming more skilled at their job or financial goal, while simultaneously offering extrinsic motivation such as rewards.

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Very common techniques used in gamification are-

1. Goals - Complete the task and get a reward, such as a badge or points.

2. Status - Users increase their level or rank through completing activities. Leaderboards show who is ‘winning’ and inspire users to work harder to compete.

3. Community - Users are paired or put in groups to solve problems, complete activities, or otherwise achieve an objective.

4. Education - Tips, tricks and quizzes are given to the user throughout the process.

5. Rewards - Discounts, coupons, or gift cards

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Refer to this blog to learn about gamification techniques used by Google Pay

India (Also known as Bharat-Term used specifically for Rural and semi urban parts of country) is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for digital consumers. With increase in internet penetration and push by government towards digital economy, new business & startups are emerging across all sectors of economy. But still digital divide in India is quite large. This is because of low literacy levels, lack of training in using computers and language barriers. Thereby many Indians are excluded from the benefits of technology. Gamification of products will help in adoption of technology & also usage of digital products. Refer to blog to know more about important social & digital metrics in India.

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One of the sectors where gamification can be used widely and also need of an hour is financial inclusion. It is defines as-

Financial inclusion may be defined as the process of ensuring access to financial services and timely and adequate credit where needed by vulnerable groups such as weaker sections and low income groups at an affordable cost (RBI)

Some of the facts in Indian context are-

1. Only about 5% of India’s 6 lakh villages have bank branches. There are 296 under-banked districts in states with below-par banking services.

2. A very large segment of the agricultural sector is starved of formal credit, forcing the farmers to borrow from the informal moneylenders at usurious interest rates.

3. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector, which provides 90 per cent of non-farming employment, could access only 4 per cent of institutionalized finance, leaving the rest to usurious money lenders

Read more about it on reports by Department of Financial Services

Gamification can be used for payments, digital onboarding journey, repayment( installments & premiums), app based cards, e-RUPI, WhatsApp bot etc. Use cases for financial inclusion sector can be-

• Boosting deposits for users with less disposable incomes

• Instilling saving habits & money-saving mindset

• New products and services such as micro-insurance, micro-investments, micro-loans etc.

• Simplifying complex banking process

• Personalized products based on data

• Increasing financial literacy through modules

Few examples of usage are-

Payments

Bharat don’t have aggressive digital footprint. Most of them pay the bills physically. Gamification is not just about reward we need to make them realize how through digital payments they can save

• Time

• Money

• Energy

In case of payment failures, the concept of incentives encourages the consumers to try and complete the payments, which increases % of conversion.

Repayments

Similarly, people are not aware about the importance of timely repayment of installments. How it will-

• How it will affect the credit score?

• The penalty they need to pay

• Importance of timely closure (getting top up loan, waving off EMI etc.)

Gamification can be used for creating habit, motivation as well as awareness.

e-RUPI

When it come to rewards Bharat give more emphasize to encash it. The use of e-rupi can be a convenient option. Read about it more on the blog- e-RUPI a tool for good governance.

Reasons for using gamification with less digitally educated users are-

1. Control to user

   User learn how to reach their goals. Simple milestones encourages as well as educate them to move forward. For example customer onboarding journey in fintech app where lot of details are to be filled. Gamification helps users to fill details and tell them exactly how many steps are there.

2. Reinforcement of good behavior

   Reward users at each stage of the journey, and it will reinforce what you want them to do. Simple example is for inculcating saving habits among people or micro investments

3. Sense of achievement

   If you can make your user feel like they’ve achieved something, they’re going to come back. Something as simple as saying ‘Well done!’ when a user completes a task helps create a milestone, and create the sense of completing a level. User who is not well averse with technology, small achievements makes him more confident. For example, student learning English in rural India will become encouraged when we should him he has now achieved 30% proficiency.

4. Competence

   Showing results of other users such as cashbacks earned or good credit scores for timely repayments will result in internal motivations. FAANG companies use this technique to create habit forming product.

5. Teamwork and collaboration

   Sharing achievement with other members of community will encourage others also to use digital platforms

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For the underbanked segment in Bharat, gamification simplifies the perception of complex banking products and increases financial literacy among users and their family members who become a secondary target audience for engagement.. Gamification has and will continue to have a profound impact on the ways it motivate people in difficult tasks and reach their goals. Within the financial sector, fintech’s in India has designed all sorts of apps that encourage average people to save money at a higher rate. Going into the future, new budding fintech ideas will incorporate gamification.

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Please be free to give your suggestions/inputs. We will be happy to discuss them. You can follow us on-

Aman (LinkedIn or Twitter) , Pratik ( LinkedIn or Twitter)

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Sources-

https://www.valamis.com/hub/gamification

https://www.sociologyignou.com/digital-divide-in-india/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49085846

https://www.fintechtris.com/blog/gamification-of-financial-wellness

https://headstuff.org/entertainment/gaming/gamification-of-fintech/

https://strivecloud.io/blog/gamification-examples-fintech/

https://www.frogdesign.com/designmind/winning-big-gamification-fintech

https://yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/top-10-finance-apps-for-2017-from-an-octalysis-gamification-perspective/

https://www.scnsoft.com/blog/gamification-in-banking

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