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Beyond the Points: How Gamified Banking Loyalty is Rewriting the Rules
At The Loyalty Roundtable, hosted by Perx Technologies and Strands, leaders from Capitec Bank, Novo Banco, Strands, and Perx unpacked how gamified, data-driven engagement is turning everyday transactions into moments of lasting value.
Here’s a recap of all that was discussed.
From Transactions to Behavior-Led Engagement: Top of wallet and Top of mind
Banks like Capitec and Novo Banco are proving that loyalty isn’t about rewarding what customers spend, it’s about reinforcing what they do. Capitec’s Live Better programme now reaches over 25 million customers, built on simple, behavior-based journeys that reward actions like saving or paying on time, not just earning and burning points.
Read next: Boost Customer Loyalty with Gamification in 2025Data-Powered Personalization at Scale: Hyper-personalized Journeys are the Future of Loyalty
The roundtable revealed one constant: relevance drives retention. Banks are moving from segmentation to real-time personalization, using predictive analytics to deliver the right nudge at the right moment. When each campaign aligns to a customer’s life stage or need, loyalty stops feeling like marketing and starts feeling human.
Explore: The Loyalty Upgrade: Why AI and Gamification Are a Bank’s New Best Friend
Loyalty as a Growth Engine: Becoming Deeply Human is Key
Loyalty isn’t about badges or points — it’s about intrinsic motivation. Perx’s Elia Wenger described it best: “It’s the emotional trigger that turns intent into habit.” Whether it’s progress bars, milestone unlocks, or surprise rewards, the goal is to transform engagement from a transaction into a feedback loop that customers want to repeat.
Key Poll Insights from the Roundtable
- 58 % of attendees said their loyalty programs are still transactional, exploring change.
- 63 % cited personalized experiences as the biggest engagement driver.
- Only 15 % described their programs as fully behavior-driven.
Capitec and Novo Banco share firsthand how they use data, gamification, and behavioral design to build loyalty that lasts. See how engagement can move beyond the points and fuel measurable growth.
Q&A Highlights from The Loyalty Roundtable
Q1. Did you start with a pilot program before scaling your loyalty system
Yes. Capitec began by identifying its most highly engaged and active clients before rolling out to the wider base. Once the pilot proved successful, the team scaled rapidly — from 500,000 to 25 million customers within four months.
The key learning? Segmentation is critical. Understanding each customer group’s needs, life stage, and motivations allows you to tailor behavioral journeys that feel personal and drive the strongest results.
Q2. What were the biggest challenges in integrating gamification into your customer journeys?
The main challenge wasn’t technical — it was cultural. Traditional banking engagement models were built on compliance and transactions, not play or participation. The biggest hurdle was shifting internal mindsets to view gamification as a behavioral design tool, not a gimmick.
Once teams understood that mechanics like progress, milestones, and instant feedback could reinforce financial wellness, not trivialize it, adoption accelerated. Success came from embedding gamification within meaningful contexts — savings goals, bill payments, or responsible credit use — rather than treating it as a standalone feature.
Q3. How do you keep loyalty experiences fresh without overwhelming customers with too many campaigns?
Relevance over volume is key. Each campaign is designed for a specific behavior and audience segment. When the right customer receives the right nudge at the right time, it feels personal, not pushy. Keeping campaigns simple and intuitive also helps avoid fatigue. Overly complex tiered systems create friction; clear, one-action-one-reward journeys maintain excitement without confusion. Continuous testing ensures each cohort’s ideal frequency is respected — some respond best to monthly engagement, others to daily prompts.
Q4. Beyond transaction volume, what metrics best capture whether a loyalty program is truly changing behavior?
Engagement depth is a stronger indicator than spend alone. Capitec and Novo Banco track:
- Daily active interactions per user
- Campaign participation rates
- Total rewards issued and redemption frequency
Q5. What’s the ideal customer journey for those who don’t frequently use the digital app?
Both banks emphasized the need for omnichannel continuity. While most customers are now digitally active, a significant segment still values branch-based or assisted interactions.
The strategy is to meet customers where they are — combining digital journeys with human-touch communication. Assisted digital tools, contextual messaging, and branch-level education help transition less-active users gradually into self-service channels. The goal isn’t to force digital adoption but to design flexible engagement paths that respect each customer’s comfort level.
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An ISO/IEC27001:2013 and ISO 27018:2019 compliant cloud solution
An ISO/IEC27001:2013 and ISO 27018:2019 certified cloud solution
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