Abstracto

From old-world queue to new age cafe: Tangerines interventions in the canadian banking industry.

Carolyn Kane*, Alexandra Khuu

Banking institutions have traditionally relied on face-to-face encounters to provide trusted financial services. In today’s fast-paced digital marketplace, however, this is no longer an exclusive option. This article provides insight into this shift in Canada. Despite the country’s progressive policies on health and immigration, the banking industry has been resistant to adopting newer approaches to digital and mobile banking, with one exception: Tangerine. We argue that Tangerine’s interventions in Canada’s banking industry are disruptive and as such, a model for twenty-first-century banks to come. However, we also argue that the bank’s adoption of a light and playful “orange-flavoured” brand and infrastructure instantiate yet another step in neoliberal systems of informatics control, conveniently cloaked under zesty, user-friendly colours.