Macrostructures de l'exclusion financière: banques grand public et banques marginales dans l'espace financier de Los Angeles

Financial exclusion arises as a social problem when some individuals are systematically denied equal (or any) access to the core financial services required to conduct transactions and provide for future security. This essay contributes to the geographic literature on financial exclusion in two ways: first, we identify some of the micro- and macrostructural determinants of this phenomenon for the U.S. case, including strategic shifts in the banking industry; second, we consider the relationship between financial exclusion and the emerging ethnic banking sector in Los Angeles. In the U.S., financial exclusion takes the form of lower-income and minority households' unequal access to bank accounts, loan markets, and capital accumulation. The U.S. case constitutes an interesting point of departure, as it has a relatively high income but a degree of inequality among the largest in the world. Los Angeles' ethnic banks offer an interesting example, in turn, because this sector has grown to constitute about one-fourth of the banking sector in the county as a whole. We find that increasing financial exclusion is a byproduct of banks' strategic shifts in the wake of deregulation and global financial competition; further, it is very likely to be observed under particular sets of macrostructural circumstances - and these circumstances are especially likely in lower-income areas. Ethnobanks, whose strategic approach often differs from other banks', can help to reverse the extent of financial exclusion in the communities they serve. But because Los Angeles' most successful ethnobanks have undertaken this exclusion-reversing strategic approach in very special macrostructural (and privileged) circumstances, it is possible that this success story is an exception that proves the rule.