Gamification of Personal Finance: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

The knowledge and understanding of financial concepts, activities, and products are crucial for making sustainable economic decisions in today's complex socio-economic systems. As one of the most representative motivational information systems, gamification has gained increasing interest in both practice and academia, particularly for its potential to facilitate sustainable decision-making, especially in personal finance. Despite the growing body of literature, there remains a lack of clarity regarding how gamification has been investigated in the personal finance context and whether it significantly influences personal finance in terms of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. In this paper, we systematically review 45 empirical studies to synthesize findings on research contexts, methods, gamification types and elements, and the effects of gamification. This review deepens our understanding of the role of gameful information systems in fostering economic and social sustainability. Based on the findings, we propose six future research agendas that can be further investigated.