Playful Banking by Lily McCraith from uk

As time passes and technology advances, we humans are losing touch with physical and real life social interactions. The services we use are becoming digitised and we can do pretty much anything from a Smartphone. These developments are particularly accelerated in cities.

For example, a large number of people never set foot in a bank. They can just use the Internet instead. How can the banks of the future survive as physical services when most things can be done online?

Playful banking is a service that links community involvement and development with the happiness and feelings of customers. Customers who join Playful Banking will be part of a global family tree, unique to Deutsche Bank.
Playful banking is primarily aimed at city dwellers who have become swamped in technology and have lost a sense of local community.
Several main Playful Banks will be set up around the World (FRANKFURT, LONDON, SINGAPORE, NY)
This will ensure a global network of playful bank centres, with the potential to expand as the service grows in the future. Playful Banking aims to be accessible to a large number of city dwellers around the Globe.
These centres will be stimulating, social, exciting and intriguing spaces.

Within the Playful Banking family tree, everybody is accommodated. There are four main categories of character, or ‘Identities’: The Explorer, The Nurturer, The Creator and The Competitor. Customers can choose to be one or all of these identities and each identity provides a specific service.

Playful Bank’s opening hours are accessible for those in full time 9-5 jobs. Customers can visit before or after work as well as at weekends.

The Explorer
Explorers are invited to undergo transactions like never before. Customers book a time and day that they would like to deposit, withdraw or transfer money, and then visit a Playful Bank at their chosen time slot. On arrival, they are given a Playful Banking Explorers Kit. This will be constantly changing because the Explorer area will rotate theme regularly.
For example, one month a customer may be given a treasure map, a shovel and a pirate accessory. They scan their personalised treasure map at the entrance of the explorer area and look around the space to find landmarks that relate to the map and that will lead them to their treasure. Once they have found their spot, they dig and discover their own box. For security reasons, the box will not open until the customer swipes their own card. They can then take their money and return their box. The data will then be removed from the box and another customers data will be uploaded.
By transforming transactions into active challenges, customers can escape their perhaps mundane day-to-day lives and feel satisfaction upon completing an adventure, all be it a small one. By using archaic identities such as pirates, treasure hunters, jungle explorers, cowboys and spies, customers can also remember childhood heroes in long forgotten stories and feel a sense of nostalgia when they enter the explorers area.
The actual space will be achieved by themed decoration and props, almost like a TV set. The floor will be covered with a sand/ soil which is easy to dig and is flexible in its application, no matter what the theme is. The development of these spaces will give jobs to designers, artists and makers to create magical indoor spaces for customers to enjoy.

The Nurturer
People who live in cities are often deprived of the chance to interact with nature. Playful banks will have community growing, roof garden and nature spaces where customers can spend time nurturing. The act of growing plants is
a more peaceful, poetic metaphor for banking transactions; Seeds can be deposited, fruit can be withdrawn and knowledge transferred. Nurturers can watch their investments grow.
In such an instant society, we are used to getting things at the click of a button, but the community garden teaches people that sometimes you need to invest time, care and energy to produce real results.

The Creator
Creativity is the perfect outlet for built up emotions and feelings. Making things gives people the chance to discover themselves. Playful Banks will each have a community ‘Make-Space’, giving customers their own creative freedom. There are no expectations of customers in this space and they are free to let their imaginations run wild. This may be through art, science, design, invention or music. It can even be used as a space for neighbourly repairs- why not fix a fellow Playful Bank members computer in exchange for some vegetables they have grown? The community Make-Space works in partnership with the DB Art Programme, acknowledging art as an important part of society.

The Competitor
A little competition is healthy. It brings people together and Playful Bank supports this. There is an annual Playful Banking Games, involving sport, intellect and much more. There is also a training space in each playful bank where customers can get active and go for Gold in the Games!

Although ambitious, Playful Banking is realistic. Spaces will need to be developed and an app created, but the most important thing is to approach the service with an open mind!

The integration of Playful Banking will make Deutsche Bank the only Bank in the world that truly prioritises customer wellbeing and happiness. It will challenge the current perception of banks being negative spaces associated with long queues and lots of paperwork.

Banking just got playful.