Jay Cunningham: Hello, my name is Jay Cunningham and I'm a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington and the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering.
Jay Cunningham: And I'm so proud to present out work: The Cost of Culture: An Analysis of Cash App and the Financial Inclusion of Black American Communities. This work was conducted alongside collaborator Sydney Ngyuen and my academic advisors Julie Kientz, Ph.D and Daniela Rosner, Ph.D.
Jay Cunningham: In this work we examine the possibilities of mobile fintech and mobile banking applications and its role in serving black communities, amid legacies of structural racial inequalities.
Jay Cunningham: Through this we offer ground entry considerations for the continued design of financial technology that could have equitable impacts amongst historically marginalized communities.
Jay Cunningham: In our work, we emphasized the need for designers and design researchers to not only advocate for financial well-being amongst economically disadvantaged communities, but to also design thoughtfully
Jay Cunningham: and in liberating ways that serve as interventions services and experiences. And so as digital money has become more of a standard of payment.
Jay Cunningham: For us broadly throughout the American society, design scholars and designers must recognize the implications of historical and continue discriminatory financial practices.
Jay Cunningham: And so we scope, our focus on African American Communities to address increase my answer inclusion amongst a racial ethnic community in the US has been historically marginalized and excluded from financial autonomy.
Jay Cunningham: We center our focus and application on Cash App, which is a mobile payment service developed by Block, Inc. that serves
Jay Cunningham: users in the US and UK, which allows users to do a couple different things like send money, spend money, bank, and invest in stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Jay Cunningham: And preliminary research into the correlation between African Americans and Cash App suggest that there are certain cultural attunements,
Jay Cunningham: relativity, and influential factors that play significant role and the adoption of the mobile application amongst African Americans. Being that it's been wildly ingrained in hip hop and urban culture in the US and hip-hop lexicon, and it's also been heavily.
Jay Cunningham: used by Black and unbanked communities in the U.S. South.
Jay Cunningham: So, we scope our research questions for the following looking toward the experiences of Black Americans and financial technology through our analysis of Cash App;
Jay Cunningham: Wanting to understand motivations and knowledge is the end drive their engagement; What design decisions can support economic development of Black Americans through the use of fin-tech? And what role might these participants.
Jay Cunningham: see mobile fintech playing and supporting increase economic agency for their communities. And so, for this work we recruited participants who identified as African Americans.
Jay Cunningham: And this could have been defined in a number of different ways in which users, were able to self identify.
Jay Cunningham: And so context around this even further, we decided to address this because we were interested in understanding;
Jay Cunningham: even though there's been a shifting role of digital services research on Black financial inclusion and information has only begun to consider the impacts of
Jay Cunningham: fintech on these communities, and along with this we consider a number of different things from historical financial inclusion of black Americans and also legacies of engineer financially equality. For this study, our
Jay Cunningham: goal was to use a mixed-methods approach to investigate African Americans' perceptions of their relationships engagements and experiences,
Jay Cunningham: in the context of the use of mobile financial technology. And so, this was a three-part study: from a Survey that was used to recruit and screen participants, in which we received 350 qualifying responses.
Jay Cunningham: A diary study, which was conducted over 30 days, 24 participants were invited, with 21 and enrolling successfully through the study and matriculating throughout;
Jay Cunningham: having to submitted at least four diary entries per week. And then participants were paid.
Jay Cunningham: Compensated for their participation per week for their engagement, with daily reminders. Lastly, we conducted 45 to 60 minutes and semi-structured interviews with 15 of those participants virtually via zoom.
Jay Cunningham: Which we addressed questions around the nuances of their experiences through storytelling experience sharing.
Jay Cunningham: And kind of backtracking over what those financial activities had been over the past 30 days in the diary study to better understand how my these communities.
Jay Cunningham: use the technology to support their everyday lives and what might this tell us about how we can further expand the scope of financial technology, not only to be useful, but also.
Jay Cunningham: useful in the context of economic development and financial wellness. So, we had a number
Jay Cunningham: of participants from a broad range, in which we use to capture really great nuances of our community in our sample size.
Jay Cunningham: With them living in a number of different areas, neighborhoods, ages, income levels, job class, and so.
Jay Cunningham: In our findings, we wanted to cover a number of things. From motivations and knowledges,
Jay Cunningham: we realized, we learned that the application was used mostly as a supplementary financial tool for leisure discretionary or unplanned activities.
Jay Cunningham: With a subset of those participants actually depending on the application as their only banking source, so them essentially being unbanked in traditional ways of banking. We learn the Cash App allows for more flexibility and control over finances than traditional banking institutions.
Jay Cunningham: And, along with this, we really learned that a social media player really huge factor into the adoption of a platform, being that the platform is heavily
Jay Cunningham: marketed via Instagram and Twitter. And then participants attributed things like cultural attunement and culturally really marketing to their use of the application as well.
Jay Cunningham: In addition, customers really value things like time flexibility and flexible banking locations.
Jay Cunningham: Being able to wait for their money was something that was really a burden and can be detrimental for vulnerable communities. So, some communities literally cannot afford to wait and some of that remains true for those who are
Jay Cunningham: historically marginalized in finances and who are economically, maybe underdeveloped. Along with this, not have access to physical banking locations
Jay Cunningham: in some of their communities, provided a really great avenue for mobile banking solutions to take place.
Jay Cunningham: When it came to addressing how my design decisions have been tech support economic development.
Jay Cunningham: We think of design decisions as practices and characteristics operationalize in fintech development. So this can be things like features navigation layouts um.
Jay Cunningham: And so aspects that were that were really, really attractive to participants were things that were simple but safe the application features that were explainable to them that allowed them to.
Jay Cunningham: Have a better way to control their money through privacy and being able to access their finances when they needed them, providing moments of delight and amusement through the UI and design.
Jay Cunningham: quirky notification sounds being able to use the application to support their communities locally.
Jay Cunningham: And being able to provide things like mutual aid and giving so on.
Jay Cunningham: Additionally, aspects, including tracking and visualizing and financial activities, being able to see what those transactions were, constant reminders of how much money that they have. We saw
Jay Cunningham: participants talk about how they stored money under their beds
Jay Cunningham: because they didn't trust banks. And so being able to use Cash App allowed them to say "hey here's how much money, I have here's what I want to use it for."
Jay Cunningham: And also being able to promote financial literacy and investing knowledge cash was a really great resource for them.
Jay Cunningham: As it provides an investing guide and resources to understanding investing, were a number of participants expressed that generationally the family had never invested before, and this was knowledge they did not have.
Jay Cunningham: And then, lastly, the role of mobile fin-tech to support increase economic agency.
Jay Cunningham: Really centered around a number of different things from communities centering use, engaging cash up to support Black owned businesses, giving in transactional communities.
Jay Cunningham: catch up with us in a micro level to launch businesses in black communities to launch businesses and black communities and sustain them as well.
Jay Cunningham: Recognizing customer service which could have been seen as an obstacle to banking and barrier to banking. Cash App provides an email
Jay Cunningham: type of customer service, but there's also limitations and challenges for participants as well, for not contacting someone physically. Um another thing is being able to bridge the gap between financial knowledge and economic development.
Jay Cunningham: Fintech can more frequently share knowledge with users to help guide them and lead them on the path to economic success and financial freedom. And then cultural attunement, where Black communities saw that the platform
Jay Cunningham: really had created somewhat of a culture in their communities, they created this sense of nuance surrounded with some people even sharing that they recognize it more Black peers and family members us about the application more than some of their
Jay Cunningham: colleagues that are non-black friends and
Jay Cunningham: in their communities as well. And so, in our discussion we have some open questions and opportunities. We end by considering opportunities for design scholarship to strengthen community
Jay Cunningham: education and contribute what we call "empathy" to financial services and so going beyond legacies of distrust.
Jay Cunningham: For these communities and being able to you know observe the need for additional avenues for communal financial care through fintech if possible.
Jay Cunningham: And also operationalizing and taking advantage of community cultural assets and so several participants emphasize the importance of elevating already thriving forms community support.
Jay Cunningham: And then, so we want to do with his echo this kind of concern for questioning "what positive changes asset base fintech in this perspective
Jay Cunningham: bring to Black American communities who have continuously resisted and persisted through inequities and economic development?"
Jay Cunningham: And so, in our conclusion we scope, our focus on African American communities to be amplifying galvanized the need
Jay Cunningham: to increase financial inclusion amongst a racial community that has been historically oppressed and excluding independent in the
Jay Cunningham: in the US, and our findings suggest that participants persist and navigate contemporary financial systems, against the backdrop of social and cultural capacities.
Jay Cunningham: So I want to give a special thanks to my whole entire research team, my co-authors and the research assistants who participated in
Jay Cunningham: the study to make it possible. Also the community organizations that we were able to connect with in our local area to share this study out and disseminate amongst the
Jay Cunningham: community of people that they serve. Thank you so much for attending this talk, we invite you to read the full article, thank you.