From financial inclusion to indebtedness
How FinTech transforms credit access and household financial practices in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4942168 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kubra M Altaytas (0000-0002-4861-607X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 103-122 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Finance and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2059-5999 • E-ISSN: 2059-5999 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/fas.2024.22 |
| OpenAlex | W4407424651 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 37 |
Amidst the global ascent of financial technologies (FinTech), Argentina presents a critical case for examining how these platforms shape debt relations among marginalized households. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this article draws on quantitative data from the Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina and the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, alongside qualitative findings from a case study conducted in Buenos Aires' largest slum. The article conceptualizes FinTech as an integral part of the lower tiers of the credit market, functioning as a mechanism for extending debt. The findings reveal that FinTech platforms do not displace existing credit sources but instead operate alongside them, providing new channels for debt that deepen financial dependence. FinTech's role in marginalized communities, therefore, is less about banking the unbanked and more about reconfiguring access to unsecured debt, allowing for immediate consumption amidst financial instability. The article in this way contributes to the literature on FinTech by offering an understanding of FinTech's embeddedness in everyday financial practices, showing how marginalized users engage with FinTech as a tactical response to their socio-economic conditions, exercising agency within constrained circumstances shaped by debt and financial precarity
Business · Economics · Financial inclusion · Financial services · Financial system · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Finance
The Global Findex Database 2021
Creditworthy
‘All data is credit data’
Consumer Credit and Debt
Inclusion or expulsion
The Rise of Digital Financialisation
The new, new financial system? Towards a conceptualization of financial reintermediation
The poverty of fintech? Psychometrics, credit infrastructures, and the limits of financialization
Financialization in Developing and Emerging Countries
Towards an economic geography of FinTech
Financial Geography I
Universalising Financial Inclusion and the Securitisation of Development
Knowledge/Seizure
The Pursuit of (Past) Happiness? Middle-class Indebtedness and American Financialisation
The digital revolution in financial inclusion
Unpacking financial subjectivities
Debt for status? Consumer credit, ordinary consumption, and the sense of place
Financializing authoritarian capitalism
Tracing mutations of neoliberal development governance
Contesting the financialisation of remittances
Credit Scoring, Risk, and Consumer Lendingscapes in Emerging Markets
Contesting Financial Inclusion
Platform capitalism
Tracking Mortgage Pathways in Zagreb
Juggling with Debt, Social Ties, and Values
Neo-colonial credit
Financial untouchability
Cache society
Sowing consumers in the garden of mass retailing in Chile
Lists come alive
Life and debt
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |