Moneywork: bridging fragmented digital payments

What is it about?

The paper examines the use of two disconnected payment platforms (China's Alipay and WeChat Pay), showing how app users work around the financial fragmentation imposed on them to create interoperability across these systems. Design implications are made for more socially connected digital services that can bridge between closed platforms.

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Photo by Bangyu Wang on Unsplash

Photo by Bangyu Wang on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The paper extends the concept of 'moneywork' to the work that users do to create financial interoperability and flexibility across otherwise disconnected financial systems, and which results in new socio-digital practices that are essential for everyday life in a near-cashless society. We show how Chinese digital payment users leverage their social networks–including friends and family as intermediaries–to overcome the cost of fees the lack of direct interoperability and fees between the ‘closed’ private money systems of Alipay and WeChat Pay. For HCI and interaction design, the findings offer implications for integrating social and financial interactions in how to manage fragmentation, ensure social entry into platforms, and balance socio-financial visibility and privacy. Beyond a design perspective, the paper demonstrates how commercial platform design and political-economic forces can shape social practices. The analysis builds on Zelizer's work on "special monies," showing how platform constraints digitally "earmark" funds, demonstrate how social accountability is maintained through records embedded within social media, and address the design of future forms of money including central bank digital currencies.