The push towards the modernization of payment systems and instruments (from Sepa, to payment accounts, from new specialized intermediaries such as payment and electronic money institutions, to internet and mobile technologies, from the use of biometrics in strong authentication processes of transactions, to European policies dedicated to the sector) opens up to the creation of a new European payments industry, marked by greater competition.
Added to this is the demand from new user bases for more secure and efficient payment services compared to what has been experienced up to now. The consequences on consumer behavior and, more generally, on the social order that can arise from these trends are still little investigated, even if some initial perspective reflections, necessary to better understand the effects over time of this decisive push for change, are starting to get advanced. Interesting analyzes from the point of view of the sociology of money, useful for the development of public policies and business lines by private operators, concern: A) the relationships between new instruments and payment institutions on the one hand and the processes of financial inclusion on the 'other, B) the impact of the benefits of new payment technologies (in terms of speed and security of transactions) on the economic and social conditions of communities heavily dependent on remittances from their emigrants, C) any cultural obstacles that can delay the emergence of technological innovations in payments.
The first point has to do with the increase in the unbanked or underbanked population made up of both resident citizens and migrants in the most developed countries. If we look at Italy, it is estimated that 15 million citizens do not currently have any banking relationships, thanks to the economic crisis and the more selective policies of the banks; 3 and a half million of the 5 million foreigners living in our country live in this condition, proving the difficulties they encounter for full integration into our social fabric. This impressive army of dropouts constitutes the essential reason that must push the construction of financial inclusion processes, an essential objective in the framework of the most complex social integration policies.
In this regard we can mention the indication, although not mandatory, given to the banking system by the Monti Government to offer a current account with low cost characteristics to bring these segments of the population closer together, an initiative to which the proposal for a European Directive has recently been added, which intends to oblige all EU countries to offer, by authorized institutions, the basic payment account, with transparency and portability requirements, for dissemination among users with less contractual power. European consumers who do not have (or cannot access) a current account will be able to open a basic payment account, regardless of their financial situation and where they reside in the European Union, to make payments and withdrawals of cash, as well as all other payment transactions through wire transfers or fund transfers, use of cards, but without access to credit.
Considering the multiple possibilities of electronically mobilizing balances through payment cards, internet banking platforms, mobile telephony, the payment account lends itself to rapid diffusion thanks also to the minimal necessary IT knowledge, now widespread in all social strata. With a low risk profile for the institutions that offer it and, at the moment, tax-free, it could represent the first step in a process that should see the unbanked population then proceed towards savings accumulation tools such as deposit accounts and the first forms of obtaining credit, to eventually evolve towards managed savings, more complex financing relationships, insurance and pension schemes. It does not appear that there are projects of this magnitude developed by financial institutions, if we exclude certain initiatives by banks representing specific communities (Filipinos, Muslims, Romanians) and by the only banking operator under Italian law born with the prevailing objective of addressing ethnic groups non-EU, in order to go beyond the remittance market still monopolized by the networks of Money Transfer Operators (banks have no more than 5%, out of a total of approximately 10 billion dollars in annual remittances). In any case, these are partial processes that are very distant from the path abstractly described above. The same scan awaits the process of financial re-inclusion of Italian citizens, left without bank relationships. Placing the payment account and the connected, and available, handling technologies at the foundation of this process means giving this instrument a task that goes beyond economic reasons and technological progress to take on the task of bringing increasingly distant parts of society closer together .
The second point under discussion aims to analyze the social impacts of innovative payment instruments seen from the side of the countries from which the migratory flows originate. Alongside world remittances (according to estimates, which have risen from 230 to 450 billion dollars in the last two years), payment flows between cities and the countryside are rapidly increasing within emerging countries. The less privileged populations concentrated in the South of the planet show impressive social conditions: half of the world is unbanked, 800 million inhabitants are totally illiterate, more than a billion have no access to basic health care, 900 million are undernourished, suicides in rural India are 250.000 a year. Unlike the situation in European countries, the financial inclusion of the weakest social groups concerns the possibility of relying on minimum financial services, at sustainable costs, especially available when they become indispensable reasons for living, where, moreover, it should be considered that there is no possibility of easy access to financial institutions, also due to their dispersed presence throughout the territory. The financial inclusion programs of the rural world of these countries are based on the dissemination of increasingly secure payment solutions based on mobile payment schemes subject to regulatory controls (transaction authentication with secure fingerprint recognition in India, M-Pesa in Kenya for the use of SMS telephone messaging, GCash in the Philippines, Bolsa Familia in Brazil).
In fact, consumer protection has also become a socially indispensable requirement for public policies in emerging countries. The social impact of the new payment technologies is analyzed by scholars with reference to both the family nucleus and the broader context of the community. An attempt is made to answer whether "mobile money" is a new kind of money, capable of changing the nature and day-by-day management of money within the family and society, to what extent it achieves, compared to more traditional methods , the purposes of financial inclusion, increasing the freedom and capacity of choice of individuals in economic matters. One also wonders if the "movable currency" promotes gender equality or, on the contrary, strengthens the patriarchal characteristics of societies.
Some of these studies argue that, in analogy to (or perhaps due to the same effect of) what happened in microcredit, gender differences also matter in payments, to the point that entrusting these responsibilities to women too would produce advantages for the community in the as a whole, due to the ability to better manage the implications. The fact is that in some areas of the Philippines the "banking" rate of women is already higher than that of men. In any case, the objective of financial inclusion is to encourage the ability of the unbanked population to make the best use of the services, encouraging the search for new ways of using them and promoting greater awareness about maintaining trust in the intermediaries in charge of the transactions and of savings collection. Another aspect to highlight is that the transaction via mobile telephony, having the advantage of speed, has a greater possibility of resolving situations in which the time factor often assumes vital importance. Financial support that arrives at the exact moment it is needed strengthens interpersonal ties, increasing the social importance of the person who sends money in the eyes of the recipient. The third point under discussion concerns the possible resistance that new technologies, especially mobile technologies, could encounter from ideological/religious concepts that develop a particular vision of relations with finance. Islamic finance represents the most important of these cultural approaches, which, in some recent studies, has also examined the framing of modern payment methods in the dictates of Koranic rules. The criterion on the basis of which the conformity of transactions by means of mobile phones was recognized is that of compliance with the general rules of the exchange which must take place in conditions of equality between the counterparties, with direct methods such as in the giving by hand between the applicant, charge of the service, recipient and be settled on an immediate basis. The absence of only one of these conditions renders the transaction invalid.
In short, according to the Islamic conception, electronic payment is recognized as compliant, to the extent that it is free from riba (payment of interest), from elements of gharar (excessive risks due to uncertainty), from maysir (nature of a bet). As for the transaction transmission time (airtime), entrusted to the technological platforms and network connections, it is considered a commodity and therefore deemed devoid of profiles of a financial nature, which is why the transactions are not subject, even in this respect no restriction. Finally, the general positive effects of developments in payment technology for the reduction of poverty and for the elevation of the quality of human life, working in favor of financial inclusion, contribute to the full recognition of the transfer of funds using mobile technologies of their compliance with the rules religious. This clear interpretation in favor of mobile payments, the result of the reflections of Islamic universities of the highest prestige, has eliminated every possible obstacle within these communities of believers regarding the use of debit cards, payments by means of mobile telephony, internet and so on, conferring certainties that go beyond the advantages in terms of economic and technological efficiency of the tools used. The conclusions to be drawn from this brief excursus are that the role of money, even in its electronic version, goes well beyond the economic meaning of universal equivalent, to transform itself into an instrument which, from a sociological point of view, reflects differences in value according to of the cultural articulations of human society. The technological innovations that are being introduced (mobile and internet) also have an impact on social conditions, even going so far as to modify established relationships within communities. These tools are now an accepted fact along the path of financial inclusion in emerging countries. Even in these contexts, consumer protection rules and greater competition between market players must definitively assert themselves. In contrast to the rapidity of progress, however, the convergence of legislative structures is still progressing slowly, necessary to avoid regulatory arbitrage between systems, especially with reference to crimes that can be committed with money, such as money laundering and terrorist financing . The consolidation of these trends should gradually reduce the high economic and social cost of cash, reducing the affirmation, however still valid, that, for payments anywhere in the world, Cash is still King. The sociological debate on the new and old currency must serve to better focus on how the diffusion of electronic payment instruments is not only a matter of efficiency, transparency, legitimacy and consumer protection, but has a higher potential by making us better understand the links between money and credit and therefore between money and economic development. In the economy, money is not only used to pay, but also to create credit, indeed the theory tells us that credit and money are inextricably interconnected. In this respect, therefore, the difference between the negative effects of the credit crunch of Western banking systems and those of the low level of banking systems in emerging countries, and, thanks to the crisis, for some time also in the more developed ones, is not so great. In both cases, there is a need to make up for the lack of credit with money and, hopefully, not with a lower value substitute (given its high costs and risks), i.e. cash. Developing fast, secure and low-cost electronic payments remains the cornerstone of the healthy financial innovation that we need and that companies, commerce, but also individual citizens need in a historical phase in which bank loans are decreasing . If, in order to contain the risks of a weak economy, bankers seem to have reasons for their decreased propensity to borrow, prudence on the side of the development of payment instruments is therefore not equally justified. The invitation to be more daring in the modernization of payments between businesses, between businesses and final consumers, between public administrations, businesses and consumers, mobilizing available balances more quickly, would make it possible to affect, even if only partially, debt-credit ratios at the inside the economy. On the banking supervisory policy front, we know that on credit there is the obsessive government of central bankers with mantras inspired by the Basel principles, while in payment services there are policies in place marked by greater liberalization precisely in accordance with the principle that they are by far the least risky financial products with the highest information content compared to the anonymity of cash, which can also positively affect the assessment of creditworthiness by intermediaries.
