Digital Debt Collection and Ecologies of Consumer Overindebtedness
分析了数字金融科技如何改变债务催收行业，区分了传统与数字两种债务生态，并探讨了数字催收对金融排斥、数字鸿沟及政策监管的挑战。
New digital financial technologies (fintech) are changing the contours of the consumer debt industry. The aim of this article is to address the challenges that these shifts pose for the operation and regulation of the debt collection industry and how they map onto existing spatial ecologies of consumer overindebtedness. Two ideal types of consumer debt ecosystems are developed: a mainstream ecology based on traditional modes of operating that include some practices that have existed for centuries; and a new digital ecology comprising new digital entrants that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining. A fourfold framework provides a lens through which the new fintech debt ecology is analyzed: debt repayment, debt reporting, debt accounting, and debt prevention. The challenges digital debt collection pose for financial exclusion, digital inequality, the digital divide, and the implications for policy makers and regulators are discussed.