Arnas Lasys
AcrossLimits
There’s a noticeable trend of finance apps across Europe increasingly borrowing from game design to make money management feel intuitive, and motivating, if not also fun. From progress bars on savings goals to points, badges and real-time alerts in trading apps, these “digital engagement practices” can help people pay attention and stick with good habits. Yet design choices also shape risk-taking and information processing in ways that matter for consumer outcomes. The challenge for European FinTech teams is how to deploy it responsibly, aligned with evidence and local supervisory expectations.
In a 2024 online experiment with over 9,000 participants, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that push notifications and prize-draw style points increased trading frequency, and a trader leaderboard also nudged people to trade more. Crucially, flashing red/green prices reduced engagement with key information, therefore, people spent longer in the app without proportionately consulting disclosures, and higher trading was associated with worse returns overall. Effectively stimulating activity without improving decision quality. Those findings reinforce earlier supervisory concerns. The FCA’s 2022 research article highlighted techniques such as celebratory confetti, badges, leaderboards and frequent alerts, warning that these features may encourage frequent trading or investment beyond a user’s risk appetite, with a subset of users displaying gambling-like behaviours.
In contrast, a 2023 laboratory experiment, the France’s Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) found that “hedonic” flourishes like confetti did not, by themselves, increase risk-taking. Instead, achievement badges tied to risk-taking did raise risk, while badges tied to safer allocations reduced it. Copy-trading settings also created an environment that led to more risk-taking. The takeaway is not that all gamification is harmful, but that what you reward, and how social comparison is framed, matters for portfolio risk. Meanwhile, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) has examined crypto apps’ “choice environments” and reached complementary conclusions. Its 2023/2024 exploratory study observed steering and activation elements such as easy sign-up, referral rewards, prominent staking and lending prompts. It noted that it can push impulsive behaviour and more frequent trading, including among consumers for whom crypto may be unsuitable. AFM also notes that while the EU’s MiCA framework will tighten market conduct, it does not directly regulate choice architecture; national supervisors may therefore focus on how apps present options, information and risks to retail users.
Pan-European risk monitors echo the theme. ESMA’s 2023 Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities report flags high consumer-protection risks, including those linked to social-media-driven trading and copy trading. The interplay between real-time feeds, social proof and competitive cues can amplify attention to noise and compress deliberation time, especially for newer investors. Elsewhere in Europe, supervisors are starting to call out the hardest edges. Italy’s CONSOB warned in 2024 about “online trading video games” and skill-test-style offers promoted on social media, underscoring the slippery boundary between entertainment mechanics and financial decision-making. While Switzerland’s FINMA has focused more on digitalisation and market integrity than on gamification per se.
Supervisory priorities continue to differ by market, so product teams shipping across borders should calibrate features with local expectations in mind.
Used well, however, gamification can foster financial literacy, greater understanding of one’s risk tolerance and encourage positive habits. The AMF review points to research showing game elements improving engagement and savings behaviour in financial contexts. Belgium’s FSMA, for example, has embraced interactive, game-based education through its Wikifin Lab to help young people recognise hype and fraud. There is a credible role for points, streaks and simulated practice when they steer users toward beneficial actions like budgeting, emergency-fund building or diversified long-term investing.
An idea for a practical way forward is to treat engagement features as regulated experiments. When a notification feature, badge or leaderboard is introduced, it should not only measure clicks and session length but also portfolio concentration, turnover, risk-taking and time spent with key information. The FCA’s experiment shows that some features capture attention without improving comprehension or results. Effects should also be segmented by cohort, financial literacy, age, and gender, as evidence suggests impacts are not uniform and can be strongest where vulnerabilities exist. Negative features can then be retired or redesigned to increase users’ activity to participate within their stated risk appetite. In parallel, it is important to be transparent about incentives and social context. Copy-trading and social comparison can meaningfully shift risk preferences, so it would be useful to make criteria and risks explicit. This would therefore give users friction to reflect before mirroring trades, and resist rewards that celebrate sheer trading frequency. The AMF’s badge results are one idea, where it is possible to reward and reinforce positive behaviour. These behaviours can be diversification, long-term contributions, completion of educational modules, etc, rather than raw activity.
It is also important not to overlook gender matters in design and testing, however there is limited data on the matter. Recent FCA analysis of trading-app users found nearly four in five investors were male, with men more likely to invest via highly gamified apps. Otherwise, according to OECD data, the difference between men and women in financial literacy is quite small, the main difference being in financial knowledge.
Keeping abreast with Europe-wide discussions about digitalisation and investor protection can be challenging however continues to be worthwhile. ESMA’s ongoing work under MiFID II touches on nudging, finfluencers and digital marketing, and national authorities, are actively scrutinising design choices in high-risk product areas. It is up to businesses to show their design choices support good outcomes, especially for cohorts most at risk. In a crowded market, responsible gamification may prove to be the most durable competitive advantage.