In Digital We Trust: The Computerization of Retail Finance in Western Europe and North America

This volume offers a new and original approach to the study of technological change in retail fi nance. It offers a massive research base refl ecting not only the breadth of contributor interests, but also a unity of purpose that comes from several workshops and comments on each other’s work. The contribution of this volume is particularly novel in that no comparable titles investigate how computers have transformed the internal workings of fi nancial service organizations in different competitive environments. Indeed, much has been said about the effects of computer technology in banking and other fi nancial services but with the exception of contemporary case studies for the UK, documented by Fincham et al. (1994) and the longitudinal Anglo-U.S. comparison study by Booth (2007), the current ‘state of the art’ in the study of the computerization of fi nancial services from an historical perspective is overwhelmingly focused on developments in the U.S.: the path-breaking studies of Chandler (2001) and Chandler and Cortada (2000) are of a general nature and do not offer case studies of individual organizations. Yates (2005) investigates the insurance market and Cortada (2006) offers evidence on information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) in retail banking.