Chris Elsden
Tom Feltwell
Shaun Lawson
John Vines
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a qualitative study of the recent integration of a UK-based, digital-first mobile banking app - Monzo - with the web automation service IFTTT (If This Then That). Through analysis of 113 unique IFTTT 'recipes' shared by Monzo users on public community forums, we illustrate the potentially diverse functions of these recipes, and how they are achieved through different kinds of automation. Beyond achieving more convenient and efficient financial management, we note many playful and expressive applications of conditionality and automation that far extend traditional functions of banking applications and infrastructure. We use these findings to map opportunities, challenges and areas of future research in the development of 'programmable money' and related financial technologies. Specifically, we present design implications for the extension of native digital banking applications; novel uses of banking data; the applicability of blockchains and smart contracts; and future forms of financial autonomy.
Supplemental Material
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pn9492.zip (8.8 KB)
monzo-data.csv This file contains all the IFTTT recipes used as source data. They have been anonymised as best as possible. The CSV also contains our initial coding of the trigger and action parts of each recipe. The file is encoded as comma separated values (CSV), with the following headings (which are also row 0): ID, User Description, Trigger Channel, Trigger, Action Channel, Action, Overall Purpose
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Index Terms
- Recipes for Programmable Money
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