How has the political power of banks changed in the digital era? Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/2009, non-bank institutions employing digital technology for the provision of financial services, commonly referred to as FinTechs, have grown considerably. When FinTechs began to enter segments such as payments, which hitherto were part of banks’ core business operations, they seemed to have the potential to outcompete and reduce the reliance on banks. Recent research, however, suggests that the rise of FinTechs has not ushered in the end of the era of banking. Moreover, a closer look at the roles that banks in different economies play reveals that even in the context of the macro-trend of digitalisation, there is considerable variation across countries in the positions banks occupy in digitalising economies and thus in their societal importance.

Against this background, this project, which sits at the intersection of politics and economics, examines cross-national differences in the impact of the rise of FinTechs on the political power of banks. Specifically, we employ qualitative comparative case studies of Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria and interviews, to explore how the rise of FinTechs has affected banks' ability to exercise control over the emerging digital financial infrastructure. Our project advances political economy scholarship on the political power of business in the digital era both theoretically and empirically. It makes an empirical contribution by studying how banking meets digitalisation in lower-income countries, which are under-researched. In theoretical terms, the project contributes to the emerging research agenda on power based on infrastructural control in the digital era by operationalising the concept of infrastructural power. On a broader level, the project aims to contribute to laying the foundation for a research agenda on infrastructural power that helps to understand the complexity of capitalism and corporate power in the digital era.