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'Hack/make the bank' : the everyday politics of Fintech
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Kremers, Ruben Sandino (2021) 'Hack/make the bank' : the everyday politics of Fintech. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3728740
Abstract
This thesis is a contribution to recent efforts in the social sciences of developing a critical perspective on 'fintech', a subsector of finance promising to disrupt the financial services industry by leveraging advanced digital and mobile technologies. Proponents of fintech see the industry as the pivot of a financial revolution, delivering smart solutions for any number of salutary ends: 'financial inclusion' in the development sector, 'increased convenience' in the banking sector; 'peer-to-peer' networks for borrowing and lending; 'de-centralisation' of monetary infrastructures; increased 'resilience' of the global financial system; and so forth (King, 2014; Chishti and Barberis, 2016; Blakstad and Allen, 2018; King, Nesbitt and Desmarais, 2020; Wewege and Thomsett, 2020). They advance a benign view of fintech variously framed as a political response to the low levels of trust in financial institutions, promoting empowerment, democratisation, and social responsibility; as a technological fix to global issues, such as poverty, migration, global warming, and public health; or as an exciting business opportunity creating new efficiencies by digital means (United Nations, 2016; World Economic Forum, 2015; UK Government, 2015).
In contrast to the seemingly unbounded optimism of fintech enthusiasts, social scientific scholars in the research traditions of International Political Economy (IPE) and cognate disciplines have begun to unpick the political and economic ramifications of fintech in more critical terms. They have drawn out two lines of critique in particular that resonate widely across specialist and public audiences. One situating fintech within the context of 'financialised capitalism' and thus within the extant dilemmas of the growing influence of finance and debt in contemporary market life (Martin, 2002; Epstein, 2005; Krippner, 2005; Graeber, 2011; Lazzarato, 2012). Another placing fintech within the context of the 'platform economy' and thus within the contested politics of digitalisation and the growing power and influence of big tech companies (Srnicek, 2016; Langley and Leyshon, 2017b; Zuboff, 2019).
This thesis extends these existing critical perspectives on fintech by uploading onto previous accounts a sensitivity to the theoretical and methodological limits articulated by recent scholarship on the everyday in the disciplinary research tradition of IPE (Hobson and Seabrooke, 2007; Langley, 2008; Elias and Roberts, 2016). The latter has promoted a focus on mundane and everyday aspects as irreducibly significant to traditional IPE concerns such as the structural imperatives of capital, the dynamic interplay of states and markets, the power of national hegemons, international organisations, multinational corporations, and global civil society. Following this tradition, this thesis advances a critical approach to the study of fintech that mobilises the everyday as a conceptual tool for emphasising how seemingly unremarkable aspects of the industry can complicate prevailing assumptions about what fintech is, or – better – what it 'does'.
| Item Type: | Thesis or Dissertation (PhD) | ||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HG Finance J Political Science > JA Political science (General) |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Finance -- Technological innovations, Banks and banking -- Technological innovations, Economics, Capital, Economics -- Political aspects | ||||
| Official Date: | March 2021 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
| Theses Department: | Department of Politics and International Studies | ||||
| Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Brassett, James ; Rethel, Lena | ||||
| Sponsors: | Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) ; University of Warwick. Department of Politics and International Studies | ||||
| Format of File: | |||||
| Extent: | vii, 214 leaves : illustrations | ||||
| Language: | eng |
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