Flash forward ten years to 2024. I come home from a hard day’s work and see my 23-year old son sitting on the couch playing video games. Now this is a familiar scene, one repeated many times over the years, but now my son is no longer a teenager. In frustration I snidely say, “You need to stop playing video games and pay some bills around here!” He looks at me with his big blue eyes and replies, “Mom, that’s exactly what I’m doing. My bank has this great interactive bill pay game and I just went on this amazing shopping spree and paid your phone bill and water bill, along with my credit card bill and my student loan payment. Every time I play and pay, I earn points for my virtual world where I can buy things. Look, I already own this Lamborghini!” I look at the TV and see him racing around a country road, then pull up to a sizable house. “Nice house,” I comment. “Yeah, I bought that with my banking points too,” he says with a smile.</em></p> I guess I’ll never understand this generation, but then they’ll never understand having to stay at home to wait for a phone call.</p> Sounds far-fetched? Not quite. In a world where gaming is an approximately $80 billion a year industry and growing, you can speak to your mobile phone to get you to where you need to go, and a pair of glasses or a watch puts the world at your fingertips; convenience and entertainment is what the next generation not only has come to expect, but demands.</p> In the spring of 2012, an online game called PlayMoohla won the Innotribe Startup Challenge in Singapore. The game, created by two Stanford college students, focuses on teaching children financial literacy. It lets kids do five things with money both in the virtual world, and with parents' help, in real life: earn, spend, save, invest and give.</p> In August 2012, Fin-Tech.org reported on a new online financial trading game for retail brokerage that can be licensed to brokers, exchanges and hedge funds. A bank in Russia launched a way of banking that keeps its customers fit and engaged by “staying healthy and wealthy”. The customer assigns a cash value to their movements through the day. For every step, the designated amount is moved from the customer's normal account to a high interest savings one. A wearable device linked to the bank’s programme keeps track of the number of steps and movement of funds. The result has been healthier, wealthier clients, with clients in the programme saving twice as much as clients not in the programme.</p> The future generation demands to be engaged in ways consistent with their lifestyle. To those banks looking to the future of retail banking: GAME ON!</p> </p> Article contributed by Wells Fargo.</em></p> </p> Further reading:</strong></p> Gartner Says Worldwide Video Game Market to Total $93 Billion in 2013</a></li> PlayMoolah: Gamifying financial systems for children</a></li> Alfa Bank uses wearable tech to make customers sweat for their money</a></li> </ul> </p>