Has stock trading become 'gamified'?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mobile trading apps have been booming in popularity, opening the door to millions of new, often young or first time investors. For many in the finance sector it is great news, but questions remain about whether people always know the amount of financial risk they are taking on.
One criticism in particular is that some of these new platforms look, act and react more like a video game than an investment platform. Is that the essential appeal that attracts new users, or does it just obscure the risks?
Rob Young speaks to the boss of one of the biggest platforms in this sector, Yoni Assia, the boss of eToro. He hears too from Vicky Bogan, professor at Cornell University’s business school, who studies the "gamification" of finance as well as Professor Erik Gordon, at the University of Michigan's Business School. And Sarah Pritchard from the UK's regulator the Financial Conduct Authority tells Rob about efforts to encourage young users to invest safely, and how protecting them is their priority.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Rob Young. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Coming up, there's been a surge in the number of young people trading financial markets using apps. |
| 0:11.5 | Making it available through an app has meant they can do it just like they do everything else. And it's brought in a whole new generation of investors. |
| 0:22.8 | But critics say many of the apps feel like a game and can encourage people to take bigger |
| 0:27.9 | risks with their money. |
| 0:29.4 | Having a investor that's constantly on the app, constantly making trades, is generally not regarded as optimal, particularly for kind of novice |
| 0:41.9 | retail investors. That's all in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:48.6 | There's been a rise in the number of people trading on the financial markets, many of them young |
| 0:53.8 | in their |
| 0:54.3 | 20s, who haven't dabbled in stock or currency markets before. |
| 0:59.3 | They're largely drawn not to traditional investing platforms but to newer apps that are meant |
| 1:04.8 | to be fun and that some say are like playing a video game. |
| 1:09.0 | They also allow trading in crypto assets. Norah Samir, who's a |
| 1:13.5 | population child health researcher in Sydney in Australia, started trading at the beginning of the |
| 1:19.5 | pandemic. I love trading so much, especially cryptocurrencies. Crypto very much reminds me of |
| 1:25.9 | games that I used to play online when I was younger. |
| 1:28.7 | And the aim of one of these games which I used to love so much as a kid was to collect coins |
| 1:33.3 | by trading items on the game. And I eventually became so rich on this game. I was a millionaire |
| 1:38.7 | on this virtual game and I actually had gold bars stacked up in my virtual room and crypto makes me feel like |
| 1:46.1 | I can eventually achieve that dream one day. |
| 1:50.4 | So you became a millionaire on this game. How did you fare in the real investing app? |
| 1:56.0 | In the real investing app, I had some good experiences and some bad ones, but overall, I've made quite a lot of money |
| 2:01.9 | in which I've just gone shopping with, to be honest. Did you think you were lucky, or do you think |
... |
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