This thesis aims to understand the position of divorcing consumers with regard to their needs and experiences within a financial service provision context. Underlying the study is a question of whether they represent a marketing segment with unique and identifiable service needs that can be understood and met. The historical developments of consumption theory are explored and related to the roles of the consumer and the prodi t in socially constructed realities. Goods have meaning and consumers, acting as drivers to those meanings justify consumption and shape the contexts within which goods can be marketed. The perspectives of consumption are applied to families and their cultural significance as consumer units is explored. The family as a site for identity formation and for gender consumption roles is discussed as a precursor to understanding the implications of divorce.

Since the dawn of the European Union, insurance and banking undertakings claimed to be subject to a special status vis-à-vis the application of EU competition law, due to the quasi social nature of the services they provide. Within the financial services industry, anti-trust concerns do arise in relation to mergers and acquisitions, possible abuses of dominant position and state aid; however Art. 101 TFEU and the regulation of forms of co-operation arguably represent the paramount and most intricate aspects of the application of the EU competition rules to the financial services sector. This is due to the fact that the insurance and banking industries historically have been characterised by intense forms of horizontal co-operation between undertakings deemed necessary for the correct functioning of the financial services industry. On a general level, any agreement establishing a homogeneous pricing structure vis-à-vis consumers represents a blatant violation of Art. 101 TFEU giving rise to serious anti-trust concerns. Nevertheless, as will be explored in this thesis, in the financial services sector the Commission has often allowed what the doctrine has correctly defined as “forms of horizontal agreements concerning a relevant cost element making up the final price vis-à-vis customers”1 through its decisions relating 1 See Faull & Nikpay, “The EC Law of Competition” OUP 2007, p. 636.to interbank fees in payment systems and through the enactment of a block exemption for the insurance industry. Art. 101 thus seems to manifest a common element for these two industries, presenting interesting and intricate teleological quandaries. This thesis endeavours to break the impasse down into questions to which an answer may be provided: Ought Art. 101 to apply to the financial services sector at all? If so, to what extent? Is there any justification for a block exemption in the insurance sector? Indeed, should the banking sector too benefit from a block exemption? This thesis endeavours to answer the above questions and thereby to contribute to the identification of an ideal regulatory framework for forms of horizontal co-operation in the financial services sector.

Cette thèse étudie les déterminants de l'adoption des services financiers par téléphonie mobile et ses conséquences sur les comportements financiers individuels dans les pays en développement. Elle est composée de trois chapitres/articles auto-référents. Le premier chapitre étudie l'adoption croissante des services financiers par téléphonie mobile dans les pays en développement en distinguant mobile money (utilisation du mobile pour accéder à des services financiers) et mobile banking (services financiers liés à un compte bancaire accessibles par téléphonie mobile) et en confrontant l'Afrique Sub-Saharienne aux autres pays en développement. L'étude montre que le mobile money est plus répandu que le mobile banking dans les pays en développement mais plus encore en Afrique Sub-Saharienne. Les déterminants de son adoption sont liés aux facteurs macroéconomiques, à l'étendue des services financiers et des activités d'intermédiation du secteur bancaire dans chaque pays et surtout de l'ampleur des transferts d'argent des migrants. Le chapitre 2 analyse l'impact de l'adoption du mobile money sur le comportement individuel d'épargne à partir de données d'une enquête de terrain menée au Burkina Faso en 2014. En distinguant l'épargne selon qu'elle est constitué pour des événements prévisibles ou non, les résultats montrent que le mobile money a un impact favorable sur l'épargne lorsqu'elle est destinée à faire face à des événements imprévisibles et plus particulièrement à d'éventuels problèmes de santé. Les résultats plus précis révèlent que ce sont en fait les groupes défavorisés à qui le mobile money permet effectivement de développer cette capacité d'épargne, la sécurité et la possibilité de transferts d'argent dans la sous-région apparaissent comme les principaux facteurs explicatifs. Le chapitre 3 exploite ces données d'enquête en étudiant l'impact de l'adoption du mobile money sur l'utilisation des services financiers traditionnels (formels et informels). L'analyse montre que les utilisateurs du mobile money le privilégient pour effectuer leurs dépôts grâce aux avantages qu'il apporte en termes d'accès, de coût, de liquidité et de confidentialité par rapport aux services financiers traditionnels. Cependant, l'étude révèle que l'utilisation du mobile money renforce l'accès des usagers des services financiers informels et des groupes défavorisés à la fois aux banques et aux caisses d'épargne. / This dissertation investigates determinants of mobile financial technology adoption and its consequences on individual financial behaviors in developing countries. It is structured around three chapters/self-contained papers. The first chapter explores the growing adoption of mobile financial technology in developing countries by distinguishing mobile money (use of a mobile phone to access financial services) from mobile banking (access of banking services using a mobile phone) and setting Sub-Saharan Africa against other developing countries. The results show that mobile money adoption dominates mobile banking in developing countries especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Determinants of its adoption include macroeconomic factors, outreach of financial services, banking sector intermediation activities and especially remittances. The second chapter analyzes the impact of mobile money adoption on individual saving behavior by using individual-level survey data that we designed and conducted in 2014 in Burkina Faso. By distinguishing saving for predictable events from that for unpredictable events, the findings show that mobile money has a positive impact only on saving for unpredictable events especially saving for health emergencies. Precisely, the results show that disadvantaged groups who use mobile money are likely to save for health emergencies, and that safety and the availability of money transfers within the sub-region appear as factors that may explain the use of mobile money to save for health emergencies. The third chapter exploits the same survey data to analyze the impact of mobile money adoption on the usage of traditional (formal and informal) financial services. The results show that mobile money is preferred for deposits over traditional financial services because of the convenience that it provides in terms of relative access, risk, liquidity and privacy. Interestingly, the results reveal that the use of mobile money brings participants in informal deposit mechanisms and disadvantaged groups toward banks and credit unions.