2021-11.html.j2 (2911B)
1 {% extends "common/news.j2" %} 2 {% block body_content %} 3 <h1>2021-11: "Understanding and designing technologies for everyday financial collaboration" published</h1> 4 <p> 5 We are happy to announce that Belén finished her PhD thesis 6 on"Understanding and designing technologies for everyday financial 7 collaboration" which contains many inspirational ideas for future 8 payment systems like GNU Taler: 9 </p> 10 <p> 11 Perhaps enticed by the promise of reduced marginal costs per customer and other 12 “operational efficiencies”, the financial industry seems to take for granted that 13 introducing technology into their services delivers convenience and makes it easier 14 for people to manage their money. The overwhelmingly positive discourse that 15 surrounds financial technologies portrays them as the inevitable next step in the 16 evolution of money, and as driving consumer empowerment by reducing costs and 17 improving quality of service. Research, however, has linked those very same 18 technologies to new and existing forms of financial exclusion. This raises the 19 question of how we can design financial technologies that promote access and 20 fairness. 21 </p> 22 <p> 23 In this thesis, I take on this question by casting a critical lens over the design of 24 financial technologies through experiences of financial difficulty and financial third 25 party access. I conducted qualitative studies with a team inside the banking industry 26 tasked with servicing customers deemed “vulnerable”; and with a group of people 27 who live under the “double trouble” (Topor et al., 2016) of mental illness and 28 financial difficulty. The latter trialled a new financial third party access digital service 29 for 3 months. These varied perspectives on financial difficulty and third party access 30 reveal the unintended consequences of introducing technology into our interactions 31 with money, and the theories and assumptions concealed in the design of existing 32 financial technologies. 33 </p> 34 <p> 35 Based on the insights of these studies, and a synthesis of the literature on the 36 nature of money, this thesis contributes alternative paradigms that may help us 37 design financial technologies differently. Such technologies would reflect an 38 understanding of money as a social relation, and of our finances as a collaborative 39 endeavour. Rather than focusing on efficiency, resource optimisation and asset 40 protection, they would encourage flexibility, complementarity, reflection, 41 appropriation, positive forms of security, collaboration and participation. By 42 designing financial technologies under different theoretical premises and with 43 different priorities, we may promote access, fairness and democratic oversight in 44 financial service provision, particularly for those experiencing financial difficulty. 45 </p> 46 <h4>Download links</h4> 47 <ul> 48 <li><a href="/papers/thesis_belen_barros_pena.pdf">PDF (English)</a></li> 49 </ul> 50 51 {% endblock body_content %}