The WEALTHTECH Book

How Gamification Can Attract Consumers to Sign Up

By Kris Grgurevic

Chief Commercial Officer, Niiio Finance Group

and Dr John Stroughair

ex-Partner, Goetzpartners

While humans are very good at solving intellectual problems, we are very bad at dealing with issues that require us to trade off short-term pain for long-term gain: we eat too much; we exercise too infrequently; we save too little. When we do save, we tend to make emotionally based decisions that leave us with portfolios that bear no rational relationship to our genuine economic needs. The consequences are dramatic: median net wealth in the USA is only $44,900 and even in Germany, a country with a reputation for thrift, median net wealth is €60,000. Needless to say, people below the median level of net wealth are unable to deal with extended periods of unemployment and are likely facing relative poverty in old age, dependent on state support. The situation is even worse for millennials. This generation is the first since the 19th century to earn less in real terms than their parents, and face the prospect of being taxed to support the retirement of much richer baby boomers while dealing with the highest levels of economic disruption since World War II. The long-term demographic trends in the West make it unlikely that any Western state will be able to finance welfare payments at current levels throughout the working lifetimes and retirement of the millennials; their only chance for sustainable economic well-being ...