Badges. Streaks. Level-ups. No, this isn’t your favourite mobile game. This is your brokerage account.
In 2025, Zerodha — India’s poster child for retail investing — quietly rolled out an update that felt less like finance and more like Fortnite. Their revamped app featured investing quests, performance-based badges, market trivia challenges, and a “learning-to-earning” progress tracker. It didn’t just track your portfolio — it rewarded you for understanding it.
The numbers? Reportedly, average session time shot up by 32%, app opens increased by 45% week-on-week, and users under 30 now make up over 60% of active daily traders. Zerodha’s gamification move isn’t just a cosmetic UI update; it’s a new chapter in India’s investing culture.
But here’s the rub: Is gamification truly the gateway to financial literacy for India’s youth — or is it a Trojan horse making risky investing feel too much like a game?
Let’s unpack that.
The Boring Problem with Finance (and Why It Needed a Game Mechanic)
Let’s face it: investing is boring. At least when you’re new. Between CAGR, SIPs, PE ratios, and NAVs — the financial lexicon is practically designed to repel the average 22-year-old.
Enter gamification — the subtle art of applying game elements (think: points, levels, challenges) to non-game environments. Duolingo did it for language learning. Headspace for meditation. And now Zerodha is doing it for the stock market.
The logic? If you want people to learn — and stick with it — you need to keep them engaged. And engagement, as every product manager knows, is no longer a luxury. It’s the price of entry.
What Gamified Investing Looks Like in 2025
Here’s what a typical Zerodha user might see today:
- “Market Master” Badges for correctly answering market quizzes five days in a row.
- “Portfolio Health” Score that ticks up as you diversify across sectors.
- “Risk Slayer” Challenge: Reduce exposure to highly volatile stocks for a week.
- “Learning Streaks”: Watch five explainers in a row to unlock new insights.
- Leaderboards: See how your SIP performance compares to peers in your age group.
The point? These features turn passive users into active learners. And learning → confidence → action.
But Wait, Can Games Make You Smarter with Money?
Here’s the optimistic view. Most Indian schools never taught us how to read a balance sheet or file taxes. Yet millions of young Indians are opening Demat accounts and trading daily. That’s a literacy gap that needs more than just YouTube finance influencers to fix.
Gamification, done right, nudges people to understand concepts through repetition and reward. Zerodha’s in-app modules now mix real-world investing tools with guided prompts: “Buy a stock under ₹100 and track its growth over 30 days.” It’s like a simulation — but with your real money (and real stakes).
In a country where financial anxiety runs deep and traditional investing feels elitist, this is no small feat.
But Here’s the Flip Side: Is This Financial Candy?
Of course, gamification walks a tightrope. When done poorly, it trivializes risk.
Think Robinhood in the U.S. — the ultimate cautionary tale. Flashy animations and confetti bursts on trades led users to feel euphoric about decisions that involved real capital loss. In 2020, a young trader died by suicide believing, he had lost $730,000 in options trading — a figure that was likely an interface error.
The danger? Gamified finance can trick the brain into dopamine chasing. Instead of long-term investing habits, users may start trading for instant gratification — just to earn points or streaks. That’s not financial literacy. That’s “gamblification”.
To its credit, Zerodha appears to be learning from such pitfalls. Its app doesn’t incentivize high-risk trades. Instead, it rewards behaviours like “completing a SIP cycle” or “tracking returns over 90 days.” No fireworks, no frenzy.
But the risk is real — especially as competitors start mimicking the playbook without the same ethics.
Why This Matters in India — Now More Than Ever
India is on the brink of a retail investing revolution. Since 2020, over 17 crore new Demat accounts have been opened. The average investor age has dropped. Regional Tier 2/3 towns are logging in with the same frequency as metros.
But with great reach comes great responsibility. Many of these first-time investors don’t come from a background of financial privilege or access. They’re not just playing with surplus income. They’re staking futures.
This is why how we onboard this generation into financial systems matters. Make it too dull, and they’ll disengage. Make it too addictive, and they’ll burn out. The sweet spot? Gamified learning grounded in real-world financial principles.
Zerodha, with its low-cost brokerage model and transparent stance, might just be well-placed to walk this line.
What Other Fintechs Can Learn from Zerodha
Zerodha’s 2025 experiment offers a few lessons for the ecosystem:
- Gamify Learning, Not Risk: Reward knowledge acquisition, long-term thinking, and responsible habits — not quick wins.
- Build Ethical Nudges: Use behavioural design to promote healthier financial behaviour, like emergency funds, not just trading.
- Prioritise Local Context: India isn’t Silicon Valley. Gamification has to speak in a language — and UX — that Tier-2 youth understand.
- Track Impact, Not Just Engagement: App time is one metric. But so is “Has this user become a more informed investor over time?”
- Don’t Replace Human Advice: Gamification can’t substitute for financial advisors, especially for complex decisions.
Final Thought: Game or Gateway?
So, is gamification the secret sauce for India’s financial awakening?
Maybe. Maybe not.
It’s not about making finance “fun.” It’s about making it accessible, repeatable, and sticky. If used responsibly, gamification can unlock a nation of young investors who know what they’re doing — not just following trends.
If misused, it becomes just another slot machine dressed in fintech clothing.
Zerodha fired the opening shot. Let’s see if the rest of the market can play — and not just play to win.
