Banking on refugees: Racialized expropriation in the fintech era

Abstract

Fintech and digital financial services involve the delivery of financial products and services through technology. Fintech companies are part of a financial lending infrastructure claiming to offer an alternative to ‘big banks’, and are often touted as digitally disruptive technology that is rapidly reshaping financial inclusion agendas and improving the lives of the poor. For many refugees living in camps and informal settlements in Kenya, fintech is often the only viable option for credit or microfinance aid. While refugees are often excluded from credit, the spread of fintech as a solution for direct peer-to-peer aid transfers from the Global North to refugees has resulted in the uneven distribution of credit access and livelihood support. Through fintech, private citizens and groups in the Global North are able to disrupt and subvert refugee assistance, deeming some worthy of aid while others face ongoing exclusion. While fintech remains a hopeful source of greater efficiency and empowerment, the direct transfer of aid money masks profit and corporate power by only extending assistance to those refugees who are appropriately entrepreneurial, that is to say those who will start small businesses and pay back their loans. This paper argues that processes of financial inclusion carried out by and through fintech are still distinguished largely by exclusion. In so doing, this paper highlights a theoretical position that refugee governance is embedded in racial forms of capital accumulation and expropriation.

FinTech, economy and space: Introduction to the special issue

“…Theoretical approaches utilised in the issue differ. Bhagat and Roderick (2020) apply a racial political economy approach, which helps to investigate exploitation, expropriation and exclusion of refugees facilitated by FinTech. In doing so, the authors show the importance of race to the concept of financial-philanthropy-development complex coined by Gabor and Brooks (2017).…”

“…All four papers offer important empirical findings. While acknowledging the positive impacts of FinTech on development in Kenya, Bhagat and Roderick (2020: 1) show that “processes of financial inclusion carried out by and through fintech are still distinguished largely by exclusion”. More specifically, Somali refugees and their camps are excluded, and those included have to show ability to be entrepreneurial, which is determined by ability to repay debt.…”

Financial Geography I: Exploring FinTech – Maps and concepts

“…Sohns and Wójcik (2020) show the overwhelming concentration of British FinTech in London, and examine the potential impact of Brexit on the sector. Bhagat and Roderick (2020) uncover differences in access to FinTech services in Kenyan refugee camps. Hasan et al (2020) remind us how much FinTech in China is conditioned by uneven access to the internet.…”

“…FinTech is a fascinating topic at all scales of enquiry, from bodily to global. Bhagat and Roderick (2020) examine the role of racialized bodies in access to FinTech. Zalan (2018) highlights the 'born global' potential of FinTech start-ups.…”

Unpaid care, welfare conditionality and expropriation

“…Racial capitalism, post development and Indigenous scholars show how expropriative processes are not just in the past and how the continued dispossession of racialized peoples continues to aid capital accumulation in the global North (Coulthard, 2013; Escobar, 1995; Robinson, 2000). International development policies of global North economies and linked institutions have played an important role in facilitating and contributing to the conditions of expropriation of the global South resources and labor–through land grabs (Feldman & Geisler, 2012; Hall, 2013; Zambakari, 2017), financialization (Bhagat & Roderick, 2020), structural adjustment (Ogembo, 2006; Federici, 2018), and the war on terror (Harvey, 2003). These very processes contribute to the ability of global North economies to provide social security for their citizens 5…”