Gamification of Personal Finance

Personal Finance is one of the most talked but most under worked area in India as on date. The result is financial stress in absence of financial planning.

What is the problem in sharing the concept of personal finance? specially for the financial advisers to share the same with their clients? 

Of the various ways of securing financial health, investing soundly is number one. But while seeing one’s money grow is very pleasurable, the homework that leads to the growth, is not.

It is boring number crunching that quickly makes you yawn.

The creative right brain goes to sleep and the process is robbed of interest. More often than not this leads to second rate investment decisions or worse.

People never celebrate investing or buying a MF or Insurance policy.

Then what is the idea?

Gamification or playing games encourages creativity, keeps the emotional/creative right brain hemisphere active and is pleasurable.

What did you do?

I created a game for my investors called The Volatility Game”

The Volatility Game, combines the best of both the worlds. In a very enjoyable gaming environment, it teaches the players to learn and use the dreaded volatility factor of the market to ones’ advantage and make ones’ portfolio grow faster in a sustainable manner.

As the game continually sends new information to the player, the enjoyable atmosphere makes the information sink in in the players’ minds and turn it into new financial knowledge which is retained very well and is forever accessible to the player.

What is the logic behind this?

Research firmly indicates that information gathered in a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere is better retained and better utilised.

What made you come up with Gamification  in Personal Finance?

Few years back a Rotary Club in Kolkata , which had 28 members, all active people with considerable financial resources at their command. To attract investments, institutions like banks, Mutual Fund houses and insurance companies etc. often asked them for speaking slots at their meetings. The club agreed as they felt that some of these speakers, who were important people themselves, would eventually become members of their clubs. However the presentations made little impressions on the Rotarians and very  little investments occurred as an outcome. Even the little that did occur was not actively looked into and pursued.

One day however, another Financial Advisor asked for a slot to play The Volatility Game, an investment oriented computer based team game with the Rotarians and the club agreed.

Throughout the game the audience remained curious and engaged. They saw videos of the life of a common man . They saw the history of the financial markets’ ups and downs, the associated facts and figures, and watched how it impacted the life of the man in a city.

As the rounds of the game proceeded the audience absorbed the concepts of the power of compounding, its huge importance in the long term investment process, important financial ratios and their meanings, the concept of investments helping in nation building and such diverse ideas.

The 90-minute program was a resounding success and the net outcome was within about three month, almost all the members were invested.

What happened to the Rotary Club and the Financial Advisor?

This Rotary Club now had a solid program and became the centre for Financial Knowledge dissemination all over the country .

With the Financial Literacy as mission the Adviser became the chairman of the Financial Literacy Committee of that Rotary district. The momentum spread over the country and continent.

Gamification is a great way to make ideas, presentations and products interactive and user friendly.

The watchword is: “Play & Grow Rich”, “The best is yet to come.”

26 out of 28 Members are his clients in the club

What is in for the financial advisers  and trainers now?

I have now opened the game for the IFAs to take it to their clients and investors. This will ensure that their business will grow, number of clients will increase, existing investors will invest more. IFA’s and trainers can conduct this game at corporate level.

There are game software, PPTs, videos and master classes every month for the members to learn and grow over and above regular programs across India to attend any time any where.

What financial advisors need to do get the licence to conduct this game for their investors?

They have to become the member of Financial Freedom Fraternity- which continuously help them to expand, learn, and update. The financial advisors and trainers can become life member of the financial freedom fraternity with a joining fee and are called volatility coach .

Currently with 15 games , they can engage investors and people of India. This will help the participants to learn and get educated on personal finance and wealth management. This is continuous process of learning and development for trainers at www.volatilitygame.com where the profile of each trainer and financial advisor is updated .

You also launched the international version of the game? What is that?

Yes now Volatility game is also available for Australian Financial Advisor. We launched the same in March 2018. Now we have extensive marketing plan to spread Volatility Game across Australia in Oct 2018. We will also launch the US and UK Version in 2019-20

What would be your final comment for the readers?

Each financial advisor who become a member of the Financial Freedom Fraternity will grow at the rate of 100% every year. The number of clients and Asset Under Management will grow.

Business will become a joy and life becomes interesting when work becomes a joy. Anything done with joy will never become tiring. Rather it gives energy to work more .

More over the final beneficiary is the people of India. When they attend this program, they become more educated and are more aware. The goal setting and wealth management becomes a little comfortable topic and subject for them.

Finally when the people of India make more money the wealth of the people of India grows . There will be less stress and more freedom. Finally when the people of India are aware and  educated on personal finance and wealth management , the over all country grows . The overall GDP of the nation will grow when the per capita income grows.

If we as an individual are not earning and growing we are actually doing a disservice to the nation . It is our duty to make the nation rich by first making our self rich.

When we become financially free our country will also become financially free and rich.

 

 

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