Fintech Futures
VirtualNavigating the world of finance, credit and debt has become a normalised and unavoidable feature of young people’s lives. Financial technologies (fintech) represent a significant shift in the economic landscape, and the rapid pace of their development has outstripped both research and regulatory efforts. While some of the regulatory challenges posed by fintech have been mapped out, little is known about how people engage with fintech, including the specific financial information that they access and how fintech shapes their financial practices and sense of wellbeing. Digitisation is changing how everyday finances and services are organised and experienced. Buy now pay later (BNPL) services have changed modes of payment and (mis)understandings of debt, but also opened young people to be able to engage with financial instruments easily. Share trading apps such as Raiz and Robinhood, Crypto platforms CoinSpot and Binance, Gambling companies like Sportsbet and bet365 are readily accessible after a few clicks. Algorithms are making decisions about who can access housing or insurance, and these decisions result in the perpetuation of geodemographic, socio-demographic and racial inequalities. Algorithms and artificial intelligence are performing much of the sorting - that is, excluding - of who can and cannot use these products. Social […]