ESRC Presentation UEA - Kavita Datta

The financialization of low paid life:
migrant workers in London
Dr Kavita Datta
Department of Geography, Queen Mary
University of London


Aims of presentation
• Conceptually this paper seeks to trace the
financialization of low paid migrant workers
lives in London
• It does this through an empirical investigation
of the:
– Permeation of finance into everyday life
– Implications for the world of work
– Strategies to access financial services


The study
• Migrants and their money aimed to explore low
paid migrant workers transnational financial lives
• Conducted in two stages, research included 11
different migrant communities with particular
concentrations of Brazilian, Bulgarian, Polish,
Turkish and Somali migrants
• Mixed methods approach yielding 354
questionnaires, 91 in-depth interviews and 3
focus group discussions


Conceptual debates: financialization,

migration and work
• Financialization defined as "the increasing role of
financial motives, financial markets, financial actors
and financial institutions in the operation of domestic
and international economies.” (Epstein 2005: 3)
• Dominant position of finance and growth of financial
activities in terms of employment, profits, size of
financial institutions and markets.
• Facilitated by technological innovation, advanced
economies are characterized as finance-led economic
systems where finance dominates economic (re)
production (Aglietta, 2000; Dore, 2000; French et al.
2008).


Changing state, economy and society
relations

State and economy
Independence and growing importance of Central Banks
Deregulation of financial sector
Proliferation of new financial instruments
Liberalizing of international financial capital flows

State and society
Financialization of everyday - embedding of financial world
in peoples’ everyday lives (Martin 2002)
Financial citizenship refers to redrawing of contract
between the individual and the state with expectations for
citizens to become responsible neo-liberal financial

subjects (French et al. 2008)


Transnational migration
• By 2010, 210 million people living outside of
their country of birth (Fix et al. 2010)
• Much of this originates and ends in Global
South but also growth of migration to the
Global North
• Both voluntary but also involuntary


Financialization and transnational
migration?
• SAPS and financial deregulation in Global South, demand
for high profit margins
• Increased ‘shareholder value’ orientation, both financial
and non-financial firms are deriving a significant proportion
of their profits from financial activities (Froud and Williams
2007)
• Decoupling of financial sphere of the economy from the
real sphere - money made out of ownership as opposed to
investments in real return, growing importance of fictitious
capital (Fine 2008)


• Link between wages, employment and working
conditions is broken - high investment, high
productivity, high employment, high wages
replaced by low investment, low productivity,

low wages and casualized employment.
• Engenders internal, regional and transnational
migration
• ‘Migrant division of labour’ means that migrants
emerge as ultimate flexible labour force (Wills et
al. 2010)


Financialisation of low paid life in
London
• ‘It is impossible to live in London without a
bank account, I cannot imagine life here
without an account’. (Anastas, Bulgarian man)
• ‘It is necessary in life to have a bank account, I
learnt quite fast that you cannot do anything
in this country without having a bank account,
so when I was here for two months I opened a
bank account.’ (Abtee, Somali man)


a. Banking and work
• Electronic payment of wages and formal sector work
• The first thing that you get asked when you find a job
is a bank account, therefore it is very important that
you have one, otherwise you can’t have the job. It is
the first question you get asked do you have a bank
[account]. (Abdi, Somali man)
• You cannot find work without having a bank account –
everybody asks if you have a bank account. (Lilly,
Bulgarian woman)

• You can find work without a valid passport but not
without a bank account (Llander, Brazilian man)


b. Banking and benefits
• It is not possible to live without a bank account…even
benefit needs an account, so if you cannot work for
whatever reason still you need an account, including
post office account. Even if you are old and cannot go
to the toilet on your own you need an account.
(Somali woman, Asha Abdillahi)
• How is the government suppose to get hold of you or
give you your money if you do not have an account?
There will be no communication/link . It is my point of
contact, if I don’t have a bank, I would not have a
place to collect my money from, or for my money to
go to, where would it go without an account? (Somali
woman, Oraji)


c. Everyday spending
• Well if you don’t have a bank account, well, it makes
it all much more difficult, to work, to buy, to travel,
you want to buy a ticket on the internet then you
need a debit card, so all depends on having an
account. (Rosana Brazilian woman)
• Similar sentiments were articulated by Ralitsa from
Bulgaria who said that ‘it is the 21st century after all.
When you want to pay in a shop, nobody pay with
cash here, well we still pay in cash in Bulgaria, but I

guess this will change soon’.


d. Social standing, legitimacy and
citizenship
• ‘I like it, it is nice, when you are with your friends,
getting your card out and taking your money out.
If you don’t have an account you will be a little
bit jealous’. (Ahmed Ahmed, Somali man)
• Rosana, a Brazilian woman felt that banking
inclusion was ‘very important because it makes
you feel like a citizen, you can do a lot of things’.


• If you don’t have a bank account, you won’t be
able to work, because they won’t take you in
without one, because if you don’t have a bank
account, they will presume that you are here
illegally or that your name is on a credit blacklist,
that you don’t have credit to be able to have an
account, and if you don’t have credit, you can’t
have work. It is a little discriminatory, but it has
got more weight than having your name in the
police books, so it is really the bank that
determines whether you are a person of good
character or not. It is ridiculous, but that is how it
is. (Marcia, Brazilian woman)


BUT.....

• Financialization also associated with surveillance
and disciplining of migrants – and especially
irregular migrants
• Brazilian community – banks being patrolled by
immigration authorities
• Somalis and Turkish respondents spoke about the
British state monitoring their post office benefit
accounts


Financialization and working on the
margins
• Work very important although varied across
communities from 100% of Poles, 97% of
Brazilians, 96% of all Bulgarians to 60% of
Turkish and 50% of Somalis
• “Do I work? Forgive me but I work like a dog.
All I do is work. That is all I do. In this god
forsaken country, that is all I have done.” (Ali,
Turkish migrant man).


• Preponderance of low paid work in both formal
(hospitality, cleaning, construction) and informal
economies (all but 2 of employed Turkish
migrants worked in Turkish ethnic enclave)
• Exclusion from financial services such as banking
one of the drivers behind cash in hand informal
work
• Exploitation by employers who assume

irregularity


Strategies to access banking services
• 1. Use networks
• I finally went to Halifax, there was an Asian lady at the
Brixton branch. I think she met people like me before and I
was told before by people in the community, when I told
them the problems I had, to go there as there are
understanding people, who will look at you as an individual
and check what you have, your situation and then assist
you. So I went to them, the lady just asked me why I
wanted an account and when I told her [she needed a bank
account to receive her benefits], she said okay, just get me
proof of your income, utility bill and something with your
photo. (Hafsa, Somali woman)


• Soraya, a Brazilian woman, opened an account in
HSBC branch ‘in Streatham Hill there was this
Portuguese staff that would open accounts, and
there they accepted the letter and my passport
and opened the account for me’.
• Awaale, a Somali man, reported that a woman he
knew had asked her friend to help her open an
account only to find that he had added his name
to the account and then subsequently withdrawn
all the money that she had deposited in the
account.

Migrant financial services industry

• As I managed to find my way in London relatively fast, I
started work in the second week after my arrival, I
managed to organise receiving all the needed documents.
A person recommended by my brother helped me, I paid
for that, of course. She took me to the interview for NiNO,
and for a bank account. (Anastas, Bulgarian migrant)
• Ela, a Polish journalist had her bank account opened by a
financial advisor who charged her for £50 for this service

• ‘I am not sure what the accountant does, I think they work
with particular banks and have their own business with
those banks’ (Pepa) and ‘I had no choice of bank, it was
the bank they worked with’. (Kremena)


Sharing accounts
• A Somali man, Jibril Osman, who had a few
friends who shared accounts, argued that they
had to do so ‘we are mostly immigrants,
asylum seekers and so on, we do not have all
the papers needed’.
• Soraye, a Brazilian woman, reported that she
had ‘lent’ her account to three people
‘because they don’t have the papers, their
visa have expired and they can’t open a bank
account.’

• Joel, an irregular migrant from Brazil, was unable
to open a bank account as his passport had been
retained by immigration authorities. He started
using one of his flatmate Arturo’s account in
which his wages from three different jobs were
deposited. One morning when Joel returned from
his nightshift, he found that Arturo had left the
flat without having given notice to anyone. He
took £1700 of Joel’s savings with him. Two weeks
after this incident, Joel was evicted as he could
not afford to pay his rent of £50 a week. He also
had to inform his employers to stop using
Arturo’s account as well as find another ‘friend’
whose bank account he could use.


Purchasing accounts

• Celina, a Brazilian woman who had entered the UK on a tourist visa,
bought a fake NiNO from a person who advertised his services in
Leros. Then a few weeks later:
•  
• we met outside Holborn station for him to go to the bank with me,
and I realised, from seeing the bank manager, that he was well
aware of what was going on, even without being able to speak
much English I could understand. I remember he asked me, when I
showed him the NI I had bought, he asked whether it was mine,
and I said ‘yes’, without knowing what I was supposed to say, but
then he checked this info on his computer and I could see from his

face that he could tell it was not mine, as if he was saying ‘well, it is
not yours, were you not aware of that?’, so the paper I had on me
had my name on it, but the number must belong to somebody else.
But he opened the bank account all the same, I paid about £100 to
the Brazilian guy who was the middleman, that is what he does for
a living, and through him I opened the account, and I thought it
great because I had a full current account [not basic].


• Marcia, a Brazilian woman, reported ‘Today [the cost
of opening an account], it is around £200, £250, £150.
It depends on the type of account that you want. They
will ask you that, like ‘do you want an account with
[ATM] card?’, and cost goes up according to what you
want the account to have’.
• Some of these accounts were then shut - Soraya, a
Brazilian woman, explained this was due to the fact
that: ‘all the documents used were false, and the
person in the bank who opened the account knows
that but then decides to remove the risk’.


Conclusions
• Financialization has significant consequences
for migrants living and working in London
• Exclusion from financial services such as
banking can lead to poor labour market
outcomes and exploitation
• Inclusion is achieved through the pursuit of
various strategies which have attached risks