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.

中文翻译：

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制衡：公众、利益和 1970 年代美国电子资金转账的发展

本文考察了国家电子资金转账委员会的工作，以了解 1970 年代美国电子银行业务的出现。本文回顾了委员会编写的报告和文件，并根据收到的大量来自公众的信件对其进行了分析，本文探讨了在关于电子银行业务的辩论中如何定义公共利益，提供消费者和政策制定者的观点。基于与信息技术（包括支付技术）相关并通过信息技术绑定集体的文献，我展示了公众的某些愿景是如何形成的，以与经济和技术理想的未来保持一致。我认为委员会重新处理了一些公众的担忧——关于自动化、“数据库”隐私的丧失、