I recently had the opportunity to attend Gamification & Banking: a passing fad or a serious business, at the BBVA Innovation Center in Madrid. It’s part of series of talks and discussions around innovation in retail banking. To be honest, I had not put much thought into this topic until I came upon an announcement, but a star-studded line up of subject-matter experts caught my attention and I decided to register for the event.

The objectives of gamification are pretty straightforward: use game mechanics to increase revenues. How to go about this? Hire a bunch of game designers and revamp your website with cool games that pay out fantastic prizes. An example of a highly sought after prize highlighted by the host bank were tickets to a Real Madrid vs. Barcelona football match.

I quickly realized, and similar to payments where consumers don’t enjoy paying, consumers do not enjoy banking. Whether it’s lining up at the branch, entering online credentials or ringing a call center, banking is not fun. Through gamification, financial institutions are looking at ways of increasing engagement, stickiness and touchpoints with their customers in an innovative, albeit not disruptive, manner. Once again, and similar to experiences with mobile banking, mobile payments, and almost any other headline “innovation” in financial services and technology, it all comes back to improving customer experience, enhancing customer engagement and making the touch-points a bank has with its customers, fun and exciting.