Intersections Between Fintech Imaginaries and Traditional Banking: A Study of Disciplinary, Implementary, and Parasitic Work in the Danish Financial Sector

This PhD project studies intersections between the financial technology sector (FinTech) and traditional banking, approached as sites in which imaginaries, such as those pointing to ‘disrupted’ futures of banking, intersect with established organisational contexts of traditional banking.
The focus on intersections departs from a curious puzzle presented by the FinTech sector, in which activity in the sector is characterised by both imaginative visions of transformed financial services and connections to traditional banking.
The thesis suggests the concept imaginative intersections, which hones in on intersections between imagination and established organisation. In studying imaginative intersections, the thesis is guided by the question: ‘How do FinTech imaginaries intersect with established contexts of traditional banking?’ This research question is motivated by a broader interest in how imagined possibilities are delimited within established organisational contexts.
The thesis engages with discussions across science and technology studies (STS), anthropology, and cultural economy concerned with finance, technology, and imagination, thinking about the kinds of worlds instituted through actors grappling with financial technological developments. A burgeoning research agenda on imagination in organisation studies is then fleshed out, drawing together different works that point to a growing interest in the significance of imagination in organisational activities. Within the emerging research agenda on imagination in organisational research, the thesis hones in on a particular tension between imagination and established organisational contexts, arguing that we should be attentive to the organisational work involved in making certain imagined futures performative.