Match-Trade Technologies has added a gamification feature to its Match-Trader platform that rewards traders with badges for early steps such as a first deposit or a first trade. The company announced the feature today (Friday), saying it aims to raise client engagement and retention.
The launch puts gamification, a design regulators have measured, into software brokers license under their own brands. In a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) experiment with more than 9,000 people, push notifications made users trade 11% more often and raised the share of risky trades by 8%.
Match-Trader's new feature sends a push notification each time a trader unlocks a milestone, including when the trader is away from the app, provided the user has allowed notifications.
FinanceMagnates.com examined in July how brokers' smartwatch apps carry such alerts to the wrist, where they are hardest to ignore.
Badges Follow the Trader Across Accounts
Milestones stay with the trader rather than a single trading account. Badges also reward turning on security features and trying charting, analytics and risk tools, according to the company.
An Achievement Center on web and mobile tracks progress, and each unlock opens a separate screen with a suggested next step.
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Brokers can turn the feature on or off for each brand. It is also pitched at prop firms, which the company named as a priority when it hired a new platform head in June.
Rival Engagement Tools Run on Contests
Brokers have also bought gamification tools from outside vendors. ATFX deployed Swiset's white-label tournament technology in May 2025 to lift client activity and retention, with leaderboards under its own brand.
Pepperstone followed in October 2025, adding Swiset's competitions engine and community module for introducing brokers and their clients across more than 160 countries.
Regulators Have Scrutinized Gamification in Trading Apps
The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) listed badges, rewards and celebratory messages among features that affect how investors evaluate risk, in a report published in May 2025.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has since ranked digital platforms second among the priorities of its common supervisory action, ahead of leverage and disclosures.
Separate FCA research found that users of high-engagement apps made about seven times more trades than users of low-engagement apps.
An FM Intelligence analysis of the FCA data concluded that the risk sits in the notification itself, not the device that delivers it. An always-on prompt removes the friction that once made alerts a discipline tool.
Prop trading has drawn similar scrutiny. Italy's Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) described prop firms in 2024 as simulating trading in "a type of finance video game" built around skill tests.
Match-Trade, which says attrition at prop firms during evaluation phases has been high, plans to demonstrate the badges at Forex Expo Dubai on September 22-23.
