This paper engages in 'flat' International Relations (IR). Inspired by Actor-Network Theory (ANT), it studies how geographically dispersed security actors produce shared understandings of financial intelligence on the EU-FIU Platform, a European Commission expert group. Studying the Platform enables empirical observation of how 'the international' is not a natural given nor a static analytical framework, but instead is actively made to exist in everyday practice, entailing numerous human and nonhuman actors. Engaging the Platform with a flat ontology allows the significance of materiality to be drawn out and key IR concerns such as power and governance to be readdressed. The paper examines the publicly accessible minutes of the EU-FIU Platform meetings and traces the development of the phrase 'for intelligence purposes', demonstrating both its interpretive flexibility, allowing actors to cooperate across heterogeneous understandings, and its flexible scalability, allowing actors to assign and navigate several scales concurrently.

Purpose In 2019, FIU-the Netherlands celebrated its 25th anniversary. This study takes the occasion to reflect on the role of the FIU in financial surveillance and to describe its core practices of collecting, analysing and disseminating financial intelligence. Design/methodology/approach Because FIU practices are often secret and its transaction data classified as state secrets, the FIU’s daily operational activities remain obscure. Drawing on interviews, public reports and an online training course, this study encircles secrecy and offers a fine-grained analysis of the FIU's core activities. Findings The article finds that the FIU plays a pivotal role in financial surveillance because it can operate at various intersections. An FIU operates at the intersection of finance and security, in between the public and private sector and at the national and international domain. This pivotal role makes the FIU indispensable in the surveillance of payment systems and spending behavior. Social implications The article poses that the desirability and effectiveness of financial surveillance has to date not received sufficient consideration, while it affects (the privacy of) anyone with a bank account. The article asks: is it ethically justifiable that transaction information is declared suspect, investigated, and shared nationally and internationally, without the individual or entity concerned officially being notified and legally named a suspect? Originality/value This case-study is not only relevant for the study of finance/security, AML/CFT and financial surveillance, but also to policy makers and the broader public who merit an understanding of how their financial behaviour is being surveilled.

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This paper delineates how stockbrokers in Mumbai negotiate (contest, reconcile and appropriate) global finance. In recent years, the social studies of finance have grown profoundly, enhancing our understanding of finance across disciplinary boundaries. However, the way in which global finance is practised by local stockbrokers in non-western financial markets has received minor attention. Even though the Mumbai financial market is comparatively small, it is an instructive case due to a transition of financial practices over the previous two decades. Despite these rapid changes, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the oldest exchange in India, and its 'traditional' brokers remain active and relatively influential. Drawing on present-day experiences as well as historical recollections of BSE stockbrokers, this article shows that global finance is not an unambiguous or predictable force, but instead negotiated and thus actively shaped by local stockbrokers.

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