Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (UCI)

The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at UC Irvine supports original research on the everyday uses and meanings of money and the changing technologies, infrastructures, and institutions shaping those uses and meanings, especially among the world’s poorest people. Today, new communications technologies like mobile phones are being added to already-diverse ecologies of money, payment, accounting, and finance, and people’s repertoires for saving, storing, and transferring value are evolving as a result. Backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IMTFI has supported over 160 researchers in 41 different countries, mostly in the global South. Both IMTFI staff and fellows actively participate in conversations with diverse stakeholders, including academics, activists, policymakers, designers, industry actors, and development professionals. IMTFI thus seeks to create a global community of practice and inquiry to address such ongoing transformations through long-term, qualitative research and novel, interdisciplinary collaborations, whether with one’s interlocutors in the field, one’s colleagues in the academy, financial regulators and other policy players, or institutions like the British Museum or National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian. Learn more about IMTFI, meet the Institute’s community of researchers, read their working papers and research reports, and follow new developments on the IMTFI website and blog.