In this paper we explore the relationship between knowledge, trust, and space in the production and consumption of retail financial services as part of a wider enquiry into processes of financial exclusion. We argue that the relationship between knowledge and trust helps to explain the evolution of financial services and the production over time of distinctive ecologies of financial service production and use. We discuss the changing scales of financial knowledge and trust in relation to the evolution of the UK financial services industry. We identify two idealised ecologies and networks of retail financial services. The middle-class suburb represents an ecology and network of privilege within the contemporary retail financial services market. It displays relatively high levels of aggregate knowledge about the financial system and constitutes an important part of the retail financial services network, with strong and frequent connections to the financial services industry as a whole. Poor inner-city areas and peripheral local authority housing estates, meanwhile, have very different financial ecologies. Areas of relative deprivation and poverty, they constitute ‘relic’ financial ecologies that have been bypassed and mostly ignored by the mainstream financial services industry. They are colonised by a distinctive set of financial institutions that include firms that operate door-to-door. We look at the formation and evolution of these ecologies over time and discuss the potential of enriching the ecology of the poor inner-city and peripheral local authority housing estate through public policy.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AgnesP, 2000, “The ‘end of geography’ in financial services? Local embeddedness and territorialization in the interest swaps industry”Economic Geography76347–366.
2.
AldridgeA, 1998, “Reproducing the value of professional expertise in post-traditional culture: Financial advice and the creation of the client”Cultural Values2445–462.
3.
BennettP, 2000, “Anti-trust? European competition law and mutual environmental insurance”Economic Geography7650–67.
4.
BloomfieldB PVurdubakisT, 1999, “The outer limits: Monsters, actor networks and the writing of displacement”Organization6625–647.
5.
BurtonDKnightsDLeyshonAAlferoffCSignorettaP, 2003, “Making a market: the UK retail financial services industry and the rise of the complex sub-prime credit market”, mimeograph, available from LeyshonA.
6.
CallonM, 1998, “Introduction: The embeddedness of economic markets in economics”, in Laws of the Markets Ed. CallonM (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 1–57.
7.
CastellsM, 2000The Rise of the Network Society2nd edition (Blackwell, Oxford).
8.
CastellsM, 2001The Internet Galaxy (Oxford University Press, Oxford).
9.
ClarkG LWojcikD, 2001, “The City of London in the Asian crisis”Journal of Economic Geography1107–130.
10.
CollardSKempsonEWhyleyC, 2001Tackling Financial Exclusion: An Area-based Approach (Policy Press, Bristol).
11.
Community Reinvestment Act, 1977, 12 USC 2901 (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC).
12.
CrononW, 1991Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (W W Norton, New York).
13.
DaviesG, 1994A History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day (University of Wales, Cardiff).
14.
DouthwaiteR, 1996Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies for Security on an Unstable World (Lilliput Press, Dublin).
15.
DouthwaiteR, 1999The Ecology of Money (Green Books, Totnes, Devon).
16.
DymskiG AVeitchJ M, 1996, “Financial transformation and the metropolis: Booms, busts, and banking in Los Angeles”Environment and Planning A281233–1260.
17.
Financial Services Act, 1986Public General Acts—Elizabeth II chapter 60 (The Stationery Office, London).
18.
FineC H, 1998Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age at Temporary Advantage (Perseus Books, London).
19.
FrenchSLeyshonA, 2003, “Bristol: City of money?”, in The Bristol City-region (Policy Press, Bristol) pp 32–57.
20.
FullerD, 1998, “Credit union development: Financial inclusion and exclusion”Geoforum29145–157.
21.
HarveyD, 2000Spaces of Hope (University of Edinburgh Press, Edinburgh).
22.
HaytonK, 2001, “The role of Scottish credit unions in tackling financial exclusion”Policy and Politics29281–297.
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, 1975, 12 USC 2801 (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC).
25.
HullR, 1999, “Actor network and conduct: The discipline and practices of knowledge management”Organization6405–428.
26.
JeacleIWalshE J, 2002, “From moral evaluation to rationalization: Accounting and the shifting technologies of credit”Accounting, Organizations and Society27737–761.
27.
JonasAFullerD, 2003, “Alternative financial spaces”, in Alternative Economic Spaces Eds LeyshonALeeRWilliamsC (Sage, London) pp 55–73.
28.
KempsonE, 1994Outside the Banking System: A Review of Households Without a Current Account RP 6, Social Security Advisory Committee, London.
29.
KempsonEWhyleyC, 1999, “Extortionate credit in the UK: a report to the Department of Trade and Industry”, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol.
30.
KnightsDVurdubakisT, 1993, “Calculations of risk: Towards an understanding of insurance as a moral and political technology”Accounting, Organizations and Society18729–764.
31.
KynastonD, 1995The City of London: A World of its Own, 1815–1890 (Chatto and Windus, London).
32.
LatourB, 1987Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
33.
LawJHassardJ (Eds), 1999Actor Network Theory and After (Blackwell, Oxford).
34.
LeeNHassardJ, 1999, “Organization unbound: Actor-network theory, research strategy and institutional flexibility”Organization6391–404.
35.
LeidnerR, 1993Fast Food, Fast Talk (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
36.
LeyshonAPollardJ, 2000, “Geographies of industrial convergence: The case of retail banking”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series25203–220.
37.
LeyshonAThriftN, 1996, “Financial exclusion and the shifting boundaries of the financial system”Environment and Planning A281150–1156.
38.
LeyshonAThriftN, 1997aMoney/Space: Geographies of Monetary Transformation (Routledge, London).
39.
LeyshonAThriftN, 1997b, “Financial infrastructure withdrawal and access to financial services”, final report to the Economic and Social Research Council, ESRC, Swindon.
40.
LeyshonAThriftN, 1999, “Lists come alive: Electronic systems of knowledge and the rise of credit-scoring in retail banking”Economy and Society28434–466.
41.
LeyshonAThriftNPrattJ, 1998, “Reading financial services: Texts, consumers, and financial literacy”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space1629–55.
42.
McDowellL, 1997Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City (Blackwell, Oxford).
43.
MillerPRoseN, 1990, “Governing economic life”Economy and Society191–31.
44.
NardiB AO'DayV L, 1999Informational Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).
45.
PrattD J, 1998, “Re-placing money: The evolution of branch banking in Britain”Environment and Planning A302211–2226.
46.
PrykeMLeeR, 1995, “Place your bets: Towards an understanding of globalisation, socio-financial engineering and competition within a financial centre”Urban Studies32329–344.
47.
RowlingsonK, 1994Money Lenders and their Customers (Policy Studies Institute, London).
SchamaS, 1987The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (Fontana, London).
50.
StarS L, 1995, “Introduction”, in Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and Technology Ed. StarS L (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY) pp 1–33.
51.
SterlingL, 1995, “Partners: The social organisation of rotating savings and credit societies among exilic Jamaicans”Sociology29653–666.
52.
StiglitzJ, 1985, “Credit markets and the control of capital”Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking17133–152.
53.
StiglitzJ E, 2000, “The contributions of the economics of information to twentieth century economics”Quarterly Journal of Economics1151441–1478.
54.
StiglitzJ EWeissA, 1981, “Credit rationing in markets with imperfect information”American Economic Review71393–410.
55.
ThriftN, 1994, “On the social and cultural determinants of international financial centres: The case of the City of London”, in Money, Power and Space Eds CambridgeSMartinRThriftN (Basil Blackwell, Oxford) pp 327–355.
56.
ThriftN, 1999, “Steps to an ecology of place”, in Human Geography Today Eds AllenJMasseyD (Polity, Cambridge) pp 295–321.
57.
WilmanJ, 2000, “Financial exclusion targeted by credit unions”Financial Times 11 September, page 3.
