FinTech Innovation

Chapter 8Goal Based Investing and Gamification

“Before starting, agree upon a definite hour of termination, when the richest player will be declared the winner.”

—Monopoly, Parker Brothers (1930)

This chapter drafts the principles and mechanics of Gamification, which is more art than science, and could allow digital wealth managers to modernize the steps of risk profiling by testing investors' appetite for risk, help them understand the impact of uncertainty on portfolio returns, enhance compliance, reduce attrition during a market downturn and rewire investors' brains toward more consistent investment behaviours, and hence pursue personal goals with more emotional clarity.

8.1 Introduction

Millennials use technology differently than older generations: they use mobile devices more than laptops, they communicate with chats more than emails, they play digital games. Playing games is a fundamental attribute of humans, though shared in many forms by many animals, particularly in their formative months because it fosters learning by means of innocent experiences. Nowadays, Gamification is also a powerful method to achieve sustained innovation in financial services because it can provide a way for individuals to rewire their brains and bodies and achieve better investment behaviour against the imprints generated by financial events and the experience of their formative years. Moreover Robo-Advisors and digital wealth managers could find innovative ways to elicit investors' profiles ...