Checks and Balances: Publics, Interests, and the Development of Electronic Fund Transfers in 1970s US

摘要

This article examines the work of the National Commission on Electronic Fund Transfers to understand the emergence of electronic banking in 1970s US. Reviewing reports and papers prepared by the Commission and analyzing them in light of an influx of letters it received from the general public, this article explores how public interests were defined in debates over electronic banking, providing perspectives from both consumers and policymakers. Building on literature on the binding of collectives in relation to and through information technologies, including payment technologies, I demonstrate how certain visions of the public are formed to cohere with economic and technological desirable futures. I argue that the Commission reworked a number of public concerns-about automation, loss of privacy to the "databank," and the "checkless" society-into technical matters, resulting in a new vision of the "public interest" in a time of electronic connectivity.