Hello, My name is Yasaman Rohanifar, and I’m a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Toronto.
In this video, I’ll be presenting “Money Whispers: Informality, International Politics, and Immigration in Transnational Finance”.
This work is done by me and my colleagues at the University of Toronto and Backbase, Amsterdam.
In recent years, Financial Technologies in different sectors have become popular worldwide.
Some examples include online payment systems and novel money transferring platforms that help bypass the traditional multi-layered bureaucratic processes.
On the other hand, mobile money over feature phones have made progress in the global south, catering to the unbanked and less literate people
More recently, cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based applications have emerged with the promise of accountability and trustworthiness in trustless, decentralized, and anonymous environments.
But unfortunately, technology is not agnostic to the ongoing social and political issues of the world such as immigration and financial sanctions.
As a result, some populations are being left out.
For example, financial sanctions imposed on countries such as Iran and Palestine have led to their populations being excluded from the services provided by mainstream financial technologies.
As you can see in these pictures, basic tools such as Google Currency Converter do not accurately work for some countries including Iran.
As another example, Palestinian users don’t have access to money transferring tools such as Western Union.
Such limitations inevitably push the marginalized users to opt for alternative informal methods.
Existing literature within HCI and CSCW has focused on 3 main themes at the intersection of finance and HCI.
The financial needs of immigrants, personal finance, and the ways informal networks have shaped financial practices have been the most researched topics.
Despite its significance, transnational financial transactions have not received enough attention in HCI literature.
While most migrations are caused by economic and political pressure, the associated struggles are rarely addressed in HCI and public policy.
We tried to address this gap in our study.
We wanted to learn about the experiences and shared practices of the Iranian immigrant community with transnational financial transactions,
know how they adapt to the existing situation,
and find potential interventions to make financial services accessible, reliable, transparent, and fair for everyone.
To answer these questions, we conducted a 3 month long ethnography in the Greater Toronto Area.
Using semi-structured interviews, unstructured in-situ interviews, and participant observations we delved into the financial experiences of the Iranian community in Toronto.
We interviewed 15 exchange shop owners and employees as well as 30 customers that we recruited from the exchange shops.
We also conducted in-depth semistructured interviews with 14 Iranians - 6 women and 8 men.
In our interviews, we asked questions regarding participants’ overall experiences in using the existing financial systems to send and receive money to and from Iran.
We present some of the key findings of our study.
Iranian people use multiple methods to move money around.
We found that a large proportion of Iranian immigrants’ funds are transferred through Sarrafis (money exchange shops).
The Sarrafis use Iranian Point of Sale devices brought from Iran to provide cash to their customers.
They also provide cheques and drafts for a higher fee.
Additionally for larger sums, they use indirect wire transfers through the Arabian countries of the Persian gulf.
Many Iranians carry cash while traveling as a means to transfer their funds to and from Iran.
Although bringing cash to a foreign country in a suitcase or on body is not unique to Iranian immigrants,
it is one of their main methods that they rely on to transfer their funds to Canada.
However, these methods come with risks.
For example, many of our participants used creative ways to protect their money in cash-based methods.
As seen in this quote and photo, one of our participants’ mothers sewed a hidden pocket in her son’s jeans to protect his money while travelling.
We learned that the Iranian immigrant community in Toronto are collaboratively finding workarounds as a response to the lack of availability of financial technologies.
We also noticed the use of social media platforms and channels, mainly Telegram messenger among them.
We found that they often share information with each other and leverage their social ties to negotiate a better price for the currency in the Sarafis.
We concluded our work with design implications for the HCI community.
We call for the Fintech and HCI designers to recognize the need to go beyond the individual and cultural values and incorporate broader contemporary global politics into design.
We propose designing for informality by leveraging the social ties and existing workarounds as a potential remedy for financially marginalized communities.
Thank you for your attention.
For more information, please refer to the full text of the paper and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments.