Technological Innovation in Retail Finance: International Historical Perspectives

This edited volume offers a new and original approach to the study of technological change in retail finance. Documenting developments in the US alongside case studies from Mexico and Europe, Technological Innovation in Retail Finance addresses the variety of financial institutions that populated the markets for retail finance. It offers a massive research base reflecting not only breadth of contributor interests, but also a unity of purpose that comes from several workshops and comments on each other’s work.

Technological innovation had a major role in the shaping and developing of administrative procedures, routines, and capabilities in organizations offering retail financial services. Indeed, with the exception of contemporary case studies for the UK, the current ’state of the art’ in the study of the computerization of financial services from an historical perspective is overwhelmingly focused on developments in the USA. This volume overcomes the usual bias towards the so called ’Atlantic continuity’ in the understanding of technological change related to applications of information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) by offering a number of sources of distinctiveness. It shows when and how technological change altered the competitive intensity in the markets for retail finance.

Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo has studied economics (at ITAM, Mexico and Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain), history (Oxford) and received a doctorate in business administration (Manchester Business School). He joined Leicester in January 2007 and was elected to the council of the Association of Business Historians in 2008. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Business History, Journal of Management History and Economic History of Developing Regions.

Carles Maixé-Altés has studied both economics and history at the University of Barcelona, where he later received a doctorate in economic history (cum laude). He is currently senior lecturer in economic history at the Department of Applied Economics, University of La Coruña. His publications include some books as well as monographs in Journal of International Money and Finance, Accounting, Business & Financial History, Journal of Management History, Revista de Historia Industrial, etc.

Paul Thomes studied in Saarbrucken and Edinburgh. He received his doctorate in 1984, following his work on the history of the Prussian Savings banks and a Habilitation in 1992. Since 1995, he has held the chair for economic and social history at RWTH Aachen University. His major publications since 2000 include 1804-2004. 200 Jahre mitten in Europa and other books. He is Managerial Editor of Bankhistorisches Archiv. Banking and Finance in Historical Perspective, etc.