Seeing Like A Tech Company: On the Platformization of American Banks

• In Event: 50267 - Finance and Labor

Abstract

Finance is often regarded as the definitive institution of modern American capitalism. Since the 1980s, financial markets and institutions have played an increasingly central role in economic life as the conduct of states, firms, and individuals alike have been expected to adhere to a financial logic. However, the growth of Silicon Valley tech firms in the 1990s and 21st century have introduced a new logic to the capitalist landscape, organized around the use of digital platforms and the ubiquitous collection and control of personal data.
This paper examines how, after the 2008 financial crisis, platform companies came to serve as a new model for 21st century American banks. Using both computational and qualitative text analysis methods, I trace discursive shifts related to big data and technology issues in annual shareholder letters and in the trade journal, American Banker. I show that the platform business model of leveraging digital tools to collect, analyze, and monetize customer data became a new lens through which traditional financial institutions began to approach the role of data and digital technologies in their business. I argue that the prominence of the platform model challenges assumptions about the unparalleled dominance of finance in the 21st century, and builds on scholarship that advocates closer attention to the growing role of technology companies in shaping the structure of capitalism.

Author

• Thomas Haseloff, University of California-Berkeley