Geographies of Financial Exclusion: Financial Abandonment in Britain and the United States

Financial exclusion refers to those processes that prevent poor and disadvantaged social groups from gaining access to the financial system. It has important implications for uneven development because it amplifies geographical differences in levels of income and economic development. In recent years the financial-services industry in the United States and in Britain has become increasingly exclusionary in response to a financial crisis founded in higher levels of competition and extreme levels of indebtedness. The processes of financial exclusion are documented. An alternative agenda to foster resistance and help construct institutional alternatives of benefit to low-income communities currently being excluded by the financial system is formulated. Resistance to financial exclusion and the building of an alternative financial infrastructure will be significantly enhanced if the processes of exclusion are considered in the context of a notion of 'financial citizenship'.