Fintech as invasive infrastructure: a critical discourse analysis of corporate newswires and press releases, 1995–2021

Abstract

Financial technologies or ‘fintech’—an array of digital technologies ranging from mobile banking and digital payment systems to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies—are heralded for solving problems of access to financial products and services and improving people’s participation in the economy. However, we contend that fintech is an invasive infrastructure by learning from Indigenous theorizing of oil and gas pipelines alongside concepts of predatory inclusion and obfuscation. We use critical discourse analysis to study finance, technology and social media companies’ language over nearly three decades of newswires and press releases that promote new retail financial products and services. We develop themes of new products old promises, benevolent exploitation, efficient obfuscation and information extraction. Similar to oil and gas pipelines within the project of settler colonialism, our findings show how fintech operates as invasive infrastructure by serving as a key link for connecting oppressed and marginalized peoples to companies for predation and extraction.