Beware of Performance Indicators

Kranz, Tobias; Teschner, Florian; Weinhardt, Christof

doi:10.1007/s12599-015-0399-8

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

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“…The investing axiom of ‘the more information, the better’ has been overturned with Robinhood's simple and streamlined platform interface. This design aesthetic supposedly enhances user investment performance, as studies have shown that more information displayed to investors may lower trading performance (Kranz et al, 2015; Teschner et al, 2015). As explained by a Robinhood designer, ‘at Robinhood, we’re conscious that design, beyond the words, communicates who a product is for.…”

Section: Keeping It Simple: Robinhood's App Interfacementioning

confidence: 99%

Democratizing finance with Robinhood: Financial infrastructure, interface design and platform capitalism

Tan

2021

Environ Plan A

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It is widely claimed that financial technology democratizes financial access and promotes financial inclusion. This paper challenges this dominant narrative of financial technology using the popular US-based mobile investing platform Robinhood as a case study. Analyzing press articles on Robinhood and regulatory filings of online brokerages, the concepts of financial infrastructures and platforms are used to unpack the capitalist logics that drive the platform business model. Specifically, this paper shows how digital interface design plays a central role in Robinhood's articulation of investors into the stock markets, through its simple, minimalist app that keeps users engaged by the productive management of ‘frictions’. The ease of investing via platform-based brokerages has seen investors taking on greater amounts of risk. This paper argues that Robinhood's success is driven by the continued expansion of its user base using various interface design techniques. This allows platform capitalism to be enacted by extracting rent through various revenue streams, where higher rents are derived from more frequent and riskier trading behaviors. The narrative of democratizing finance as employed widely in the financial technology sector thus obscures the capitalist logics and predatory practices that underlie financial technology.

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Section: Keeping It Simple: Robinhood's App Interfacementioning

confidence: 99%