Recipes for Programmable Money

This paper presents a qualitative study of the recent integration of a UK-based, digital-first mobile banking app — Monzo — with the web automation service IFTTT (If This Then That). Through analysis of 113 unique IFTTT ‘recipes’ shared by Monzo users on public community forums, we illustrate the potentially diverse functions of these recipes, and how they are achieved through different kinds of automation. Beyond achieving more convenient and efficient financial management, we note many playful and expressive applications of conditionality and automation that far extend traditional functions of banking applications and infrastructure. We use these findings to map opportunities, challenges and areas of future research in the development of ‘programmable money’ and related financial technologies. Specifically, we present design implications for the extension of native digital banking applications; novel uses of banking data; the applicability of blockchains and smart contracts; and future forms of financial autonomy.