Alternative Service Providers Research Articles

Transit fares integrating alternative modes as a delay insurance

Public transport (PT) fare policy remains subject to innovations, not least evident in the Mobility as a Service discussion. Mode integration and related fare strategies can be used to increase the attractiveness of PT by compensating for potential delays. This study proposes “premium fares” as a novel pricing tool that can evaluate and improve the travel time reliability on a multimodal transportation network. The premium fare is higher than the standard fare but allows passengers to use an alternative service free of charge if waiting for the delayed public transport service is anticipated to be longer than a certain qualification threshold. Properties that guarantee monotonicity of the premium fare with respect to distance traveled are developed. The operator aims to find the premium fare price and qualification threshold that can maximize its profit, based on the probability distributions of delay and passengers’ value of time (VOT). We model this optimization problem for a railway line given a limited capacity of alternative mode services, e.g., the number of taxis. A two-stage approach using nonlinear and dynamic programming is developed to obtain the optimal decision variables and associated capacity allocation plan. Our results show that the introduction of the premium fare can benefit both operators and travelers with increased profits and improved travel time reliability. The interplay between fares and the qualification threshold is illustrated using various delay and VOT distributions. To attract enough customers the premium fare has to be set below a specific level dependent on the VOT distribution. Meanwhile, the operator adjusts the qualification threshold to control the cost paid to the alternative service provider.

Unstructuring for insight: the legal profession in an age of AI and social change

ABSTRACT While the capacity to solve ill-structured, messy problems has always been essential for lawyers, its importance and centrality are growing. On one hand, technology and alternative legal service providers are encroaching on much of the other work that was once considered to be at the core of legal professional practice. At the same time, ill-structured problems are proliferating as a result of the novel legal questions posed by new technologies and a renewed sense of urgency to address the access to justice gap as well as broader systemic inequality. To prepare law students for this kind of professional practice, law schools should teach students how to engage in a process I call “unstructuring” in which they seek a richer understanding of the details and context of an apparently well-defined problem in order to discover ways to see it in a new light.

Service Provider Portfolio Selection across the Project Life Cycle Considering Synergy Effect

During the project life cycle, selecting the appropriate service provider portfolio (SPP) is essential to guaranteeing the successful implementation of manufacturing tasks. However, the existence of the synergy effect among service providers poses a challenge for decision makers in selecting the most suitable SPP. To effectively address this challenge, this study constructs a novel service provider portfolio selection (SPPS) model across the project life cycle, considering the synergy effect. The model is based on the integration of a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN), the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), and the entropy method (EM). First, the evaluation criteria for service provider selection are defined, followed by the identification of alternative service providers and feasible SPPs based on project life cycle division. Subsequently, a quantitative analysis of the synergy effect among service providers within the same stage, as well as between different stages, throughout the project life cycle, is carried out. This analysis helps to determine the input variables and expected output variables that will be utilized in the model. Additionally, the feasibility and applicability of the proposed model are illustrated through an example. Finally, a comparison between the proposed hybrid model and the BPNN is conducted to validate the model’s accuracy and efficiency. This study contributes to making sound decisions in the SPPS process from a project life cycle perspective.

Examining the health and wellbeing of women sanitation workers in Ghana and Kenya

About 3.6 billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed sanitation service. To bridge service gaps, informal sanitation businesses have emerged as alternative service providers to meet the sanitation needs of unserved populations. Informal sanitation workers include persons who empty septic tanks, clean toilets, sewers, and manage public toilets. They provide a fundamental public service particularly in areas where access to municipal sanitation service is limited. Through qualitative methodologies, this paper explores the lived experiences and associated health risks of women working in the informal sanitation sector in urban Ghana and Kenya. Our findings show that female informal sanitation workers were exposed to injuries and infections, stigma and discrimination, emotional and psychological distress, sexual harassment, and unhealthy coping strategies. Distinctively, younger female participants were more likely to experience sexual harassment. Because of social stigma, many of the women developed unsafe work practices such as refusal to wear PPE and working at night. By paying close attention to the embodied effects of informal sanitation work, we can better comprehend the daily politics, lived experiences, and urban social infrastructure regimes that have a significant impact on the quality of life of informal sanitation workers. The results are also crucial for developing programs for women's empowerment and labour and social protection policies, especially in lowincome settings where gender norms interact with income disparities and other sociopolitical issues to affect women's participation in the labor market.

An intelligence coordination system toward creating the super-intelligent law firm.

A large law firm typically exhibits a collective intelligence comprised of hundreds or thousands of legal minds aimed at simultaneously engaging thousands of active matters across scores of industries and dozens of practice specialties with distinct doctrinal and procedural characteristics. The firm is challenged not only to achieve successful, cost-effective outcomes for its clients, but must also simultaneously, in competition with other firms and alternative service providers, attract and cultivate talent, develop and coordinate capabilities across multiple evolving areas of practice and continually improve a robust collective intelligence to gain a competitive edge. As various types of machine intelligences and tools are introduced, firms must also groom these into the collective. In this paper we explore a human-machine hybrid system for addressing this large scale, multi-dimensional, dynamic optimization challenge to coordinate a collective intelligence of humans and machines. Machine intelligence is needed to handle the computational complexity and it is complemented by human intelligence to help handle exceptions and novel situations. We believe this approach has potential for transforming the collective intelligence that is the large law firm.

I can be myself: robots reduce social discomfort in hospitality service encounters

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate service robots as an alternative service provider that can reduce customers’ social discomfort in hospitality service encounters. Specifically, the authors discuss when and in what scenarios service robots can alleviate such social discomfort and explain this effect from the perspective of dehumanization.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a social constructivist paradigm, the authors adopt a qualitative research design, gathering data through 21 semistructured interviews to explore why the presence of service employees causes customers’ social discomfort in hospitality service encounters and how service robots alleviate such discomfort.FindingsThis study’s results suggest that both the active and passive engagement of service employees are sources of customers’ social discomfort in hospitality service encounters; thus, adopting service robots can help reduce such discomfort in some scenarios. Customers’ differentiating behaviors, a downstream effect of social discomfort, are also addressed.Practical implicationsService robots can reduce customers’ social discomfort in certain scenarios and influence their consumption behaviors. This finding offers actionable insights regarding the adoption of service robots in hospitality service encounters.Originality/valueThis research enhances the understanding of social discomfort in hospitality service encounters and expands the research on service robots. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first attempt to reveal the bright side of robots in service encounters from a dehumanization perspective.

Thinking Like Entrepreneurs: Qlegal’s Experience of Teaching Law Students to have an Entrepreneurial Mindset

To advise a client you need to understand what they do. To provide truly innovative, client-centred advice, you also need to understand how they think. These observations are especially true when working with entrepreneurs who may be otherwise inclined to move forward with their business with or without legal guidance. Entrepreneurs are distinguished by their growth mindset and resilience, appetite for innovation and comfort with taking risks and doing things themselves. As the legal marketplace in the UK becomes increasingly competitive (due to legal technology and the growing number of alternative legal service providers), law students need to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset themselves, both to navigate the legal marketplacefor their own careers and to provide commercially aware legal services to their clients. Law schools need to teach law students to think like entrepreneurs, and commercial law clinics provide the natural setting. This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach to examine how qLegal, the pro bono commercial law clinic within the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (“CCLS”) at Queen Mary, University of London (“QMUL”) teaches students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. We reflect on the importance of students learning about and developing this mindset, for their own professional development and to service the unmet legal needs of the start-up community. This paper will also highlight the challenges faced by qLegal staff, including our own legal training and experience, our obligations to real clients and our students’ expectations. We conclude by sharing examples of how we are currently teaching our students to have an entrepreneurial mindset and our ideas for overcoming our institutional challenges and improving our offering even more.

Optimal production scheduling with multi-round information interaction for demander-dominated decentralized scheduling problem

Demander-dominated market scenarios are becoming increasingly common owing to the emergence of alternative service providers and competitive market environment. However, these scenarios have not been considered in previous studies pertaining to decentralized scheduling problems. Thus, service providers cannot formulate optimal production scheduling schemes for such scenarios. In this study, we investigate a demander-dominated decentralized scheduling problem in which the demander can adopt the private-strategic behavior of transferring partial orders towards its alternative service providers. The aim of this study is to provide guidance to service providers for developing high-quality production scheduling solutions under asymmetric information. First, we design a multi-round information interaction mechanism with a learning strategy to realize information interaction. Subsequently, a metaheuristic algorithm termed MAM is developed based on the multi-round information interaction mechanism to solve the proposed problem. A problem-dependent initialization method and a solution generation method integrating the learning strategy are developed to improve the search efficiency. Experimental results indicate the usefulness of the initialization method and learning strategy. Based on a comparison with two well-established adapted algorithms, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is confirmed, particularly for instances with loose due dates. Furthermore, we analyze the effect of MAM on both the service provider and the demander by comparing it with traditional centralized approaches. Statistical results show that the proposed algorithm yields high-quality solutions for the service provider and that maintaining the confidentiality of private information is conducive to the demander, particularly when the due dates are tight.

FRINGE FINANCIAL ECOLOGIES AND PLACE‐BASED EXCLUSION: A Tale of Two Cities

AbstractAccess to safe and affordable financial services is essential to the economic well‐being of individual households and entire urban neighborhoods. However, prior research raises concerns about spatial inequities in the distribution of brick‐and‐mortar financial services offerings—either mainstream financial institutions or alternative ‘fringe’ financial service providers—and the resulting implications for financial inclusion and social justice. This study uses a novel method to identify fringe financial ecologies that captures the recent tandem processes of abandonment by mainstream financial institutions and the proliferation of alternative financial service providers. We explore how fringe financial ecologies potentially overlap existing inequalities of race, class and subprime mortgage lending in two US metropolitan areas, Los Angeles, California, and Miami, Florida. Our results raise concerns that communities of color, low‐income neighborhoods and otherwise vulnerable segments of the population are disproportionately at risk of both financial exclusion and predatory targeting. We find that fringe financial ecologies are associated with a high prevalence of subprime mortgage lending. The results advance an understanding of financial ecologies that raises awareness about place‐based financial exclusion as a form of systemic racism in the broader context of the national reckoning with racial justice in the US.

The self-efficacy of private school teachers toward the implementation of inclusive education in Ghana: A mixed-methods study

BackgroundAlthough efforts toward practicing inclusive education have stalled in countries such as Ghana, the available data have mainly centred on enacting inclusive education in public schools. With private schools being notable alternative service providers to public schools, understanding private school teachers’ perceived self-efficacy toward teaching students with disabilities in the classroom is essential.MethodTo develop insights into inclusive practices, a two-phase mixed-methods design was adopted for this study. In the first phase, 82 teachers from six private schools responded to the self-reported Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice (TEIP) scale. In the second phase, there were 10 participants, including principals (n= 3), heads of department (n= 4) and teachers (n= 3). While the quantitative data were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis,t-tests, analysis of variance and linear regression, the qualitative data were analysed thematically using the components of the TEIP scale asa priorithemes.ResultThe study confirmed the structural validity of the TEIP scale in measuring teachers’ self-efficacy and the correlations and covariances between efficacy in managing behaviour and performing instruction and collaboration. There was divergence between the quantitative and qualitative data and background variables, such as educational qualifications, pre-service training in inclusive education and participation in professional development, which provided additional insights into the teachers’ self-efficacy.ConclusionThe findings show that some private school teachers teach students with disabilities despite having no confidence in their capabilities. The study findings underscore the need to create more training opportunities for private school teachers to enhance their confidence in practicing inclusive education in schools.

Analysis of Customer Satisfaction and Internet Service Quality During the Covid 19 Pandemic in Sri Lanka

The tracking of Service Quality is an important consideration for a business as customers may go with an alternative service provider if they are dissatisfied with the standard. In particular we look at Internet Service Providers (ISP) and research the impact of Internet Service Quality (ISQ) on Customer Satisfaction. The prevailing COVID-19 situation in Sri Lanka reveals the importance of this study as governmentrules and regulations have been imposed to promote work from home, online learning and online entertainment. Previous studies have looked at the influence of ISQ on Customer Satisfaction in other countries – however to the best of our knowledge, no such evaluation has been done in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, in the context of COVID-19 the existing literature is lacking. Past research identifies the following factors which impact ISQ: Tangibility, Assurance, Empathy, Reliability, Responsiveness (Eze, et al., 2008) and Price (Joudeh & Dandis, 2018). This study was carried out as a deductive study and a quantitative method was employed. Our sample included 500 respondents obtained from the convenience sampling method by distributing a questionnaire survey among university undergraduates within Sri Lanka. The findings revealed that there is a positive relationship between Internet Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction. The study was also able to extract insights for ISP managers by highlighting the aspects of ISQ which can satisfy their customer base as well as measures which could be taken with reference to the practice gaps identified.

Mapping the operation of Airbnb in Sri Lankan cities

Airbnb is most famous as a part of the growing “sharing”, “peer-to-peer”, or “digital” economy where the platform transformed the traditional tourist accommodation services through its novel business model. In order to comprehend the influence of Airbnb on the tourism and hospitality landscape, it is critical first to understand the market and how Airbnb operates. Therefore, in this study, we explore the operation of Airbnb in Sri Lanka using descriptive statistics and maps by analysing the scrapped data of the Airbnb website. The study results show that Airbnb has been well established on Sri Lankan soil as an alternative accommodation service provider, and the listings have been scattered across the country. However, most listings tend to concentrate in the city centres of famous touristic districts and tourist resort regions in Sri Lanka. These findings will provide a valuable avenue for further investigation of the operation of Airbnb in Sri Lanka.

Third-Party Logistics (3PL) Provider Selection Using Hybrid Model of SWARA and WASPAS

Increasing competition as a result of globalization forces companies to focus on the core activities they are specialized in and to use outsourcing in areas other than these core activities. Companies seek to outsource their logistics functions partially or completely since this is not in their main field of activity. Thus, companies are faced with the problem of choosing a Third Party Logistics (3PL) service provider that can contribute to their sustainable development and perfectly perform the logistics activities. In this study, the 3PL selection problem of a cable manufacturing company is discussed. The study aims to solve the business problem and to show the applicability of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods in the most appropriate 3PL selection problems. The 3PL selection was made in line with the criteria and alternatives determined by a team of decision-makers working in the relevant department of the company. First of all, the weight value of each criterion was determined by using the SWARA method based on the MCDM method. This method was chosen because it takes group decisions into account and is easy to implement. Afterward, calculations were made according to the criteria levels of each alternative service provider with the WASPAS method. In the study, 12 criteria were determined by the decision-makers. Besides, 5 different 3PL companies were taken into account. According to the results of the study, it was the third 3PL that met the criteria at the most appropriate level.

Fringe banking and financialization: Pawnbroking in pre‐famine and famine Ireland

AbstractPawnbroking, one of the oldest and most accessible forms of credit, was a common feature of life in pre‐famine and famine Ireland. This article studies the role of pawnbroking in the Irish financial system during this important period, applying insights from modern studies on fringe banking. In the period under study, a formal tiered financial system existed; regulated joint‐stock banks offered services to industry and the better off, while fringe banks provided financial services largely, but not exclusively, to unbanked groups. The main findings are that pawnbrokers provided a steady source of credit throughout the island of Ireland and that this credit stream was more durable than that provided by alternative financial service providers in the fringe banking market, especially during the famine. Our findings suggest a nuanced interpretation is needed as we find strong interrelationships between the various financial service providers.

An Econometric Analysis of the Effects of Mobile Termination Rates on the Telecom Services Market in a Developing Country: Evidence from Microdata

Mobile network operators may use high mobile termination rates to harm competition, with the effect of also harming consumers. Termination rates are the fees paid by a network operator to another network operator to terminate a call on the other operator’s network. Together with on-network discounts, excessive mobile termination rates have the effects of distorting market conditions, discouraging consumer switching, discouraging new entrants in the market, increasing consumer prices, and otherwise harming competition. Regulation is necessary because each mobile network is essentially a monopoly for the termination of calls, resulting in a failure of market mechanisms to prevent or correct the conditions mentioned. We examine the case of Rwanda, where regulatory intervention became necessary to correct market failures. Like regulators in many developing countries, the Regulatory Authority faced several unique challenges. Among these is the issue of investment in infrastructure development, where the need to create new infrastructure is substantial, it is difficult to attract investment, no alternative service providers exist if an incumbent exits the market, and average revenue per user is relatively low. Regulators in these markets face difficult decisions due to the desire to serve consumers while also encouraging competition, innovation, and investment. Additionally, there was no existing data on the effects of such regulation for Rwanda, and relatively little relevant data available from other developing countries. In this paper, we partner with the telecommunications regulatory authority to analyze publicly unavailable data collected directly by the regulator. This paper uses monthly panel data from telecom companies two and a half years before and after implementing mobile termination rate regulations. We use both fixed effect and interaction term regression models to examine the relationship between termination charges and on/off-network calling prices, on-network discounts, and calling price elasticity. We use the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to consider the effects, if any, on market concentration and competitiveness. We also examine some of the regulatory challenges to implement the regulation of interconnection rates. The analysis serves as a case study not only for Rwanda but as the context for many developing countries facing similar questions around the approach to, and impact of, mobile termination rate regulation on operator revenues, consumer pricing, competition, and appropriate regulation.

Healthcare service provider type selection of the medical tourists by using neutrosophic sets

Medical tourism service offers a professional healthcare opportunity by travelling abroad with the chance of touristic and cultural activities at the destination country. Medical travelers prefer a foreign country for treatment due to long waiting periods, high costs, excessive number of patients, inadequate number of healthcare professionals and inadequate cutting-edge technological equipment at their country of residence. An assistance company (AC) is a legal requirement to support medical tourists in Turkey during the treatment period, and offers alternative healthcare service providers (HSPs) that are public hospitals, private hospitals and private clinics at the first phase of the medical tourism service. Moreover, there are specific HSPs certificated by the government, and a few number of public hospitals authenticated for medical tourism. By taking the whole above statements into consideration, HSP selection is a key decision-making point differentiating from a traditional hospital selection of a patient. Medical tourists must evaluate various criteria in order to select a proper HSP. Additionally, these decision criteria are often vague, complex, indeterminate and inconsistent information in the HSP type decision. Hence, in this study, a decision making model based on neutrosophic fuzzy sets considering HSP selection in every aspect (truthiness, indeterminacy and falsity) is suggested.

Digital platforms and their application in the aviation industry

The article considers one of the directions of digital transformation, namely digital platforms. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development says that digital platforms create new opportunities for companies of all sizes to engage in trade. They can lead to efficiency gains through lower transaction costs and reduced information asymmetries supported by rating systems. Other benefits include lower consumer prices, increased market access, more competition, better use of underutilized resources and increased flexibility for the providers of services. However, gains are not automatic, and there are growing concerns over the rising market power of certain platforms and the related implications for competition, data protection and ownership, consumer protection and taxation and employment policies. Economic policies and regulations will need to maximize the benefits while at the same time minimizing the costs of digital platforms. Accordingly to Digital Economy Report 2019 by UNCTAD digital platforms provide the mechanisms for bringing together a set of parties to interact online. A distinction can be made between transaction platforms and innovation platforms. Transaction platforms are two/multi-sided markets with an online infrastructure that supports exchanges between a number of different parties. They have become a core business model for major digital corporations (such as Amazon, Alibaba, Facebook and eBay), as well as for those that are supporting digitally enabled sectors (such as Uber, Didi Chuxing or Airbnb). Innovation platforms create environments for code and content producers to develop applications and software in the form of, for example, operating systems (e.g. Android or Linux) or technology standards (e.g. MPEG video). Several factors help explain the rapid rise to dominance of these digital giants. The first is related to network effects (i.e. the more users on a platform, the more valuable it becomes for everyone). The second is the platforms’ ability to extract, control and analyses data. As with network effects, more users mean more data, and more data mean a stronger ability to outcompete potential rivals and capitalize on first-mover advantages. Thirdly, once a platform begins to gain traction and starts offering different integrated services, the costs to users of switching to an alternative service provider start to increase. The transformative power of data in the sphere of economic and social interactions means that governments, businesses, and people must adapt to use emerging opportunities and avoid traps and risks. The ability of countries and various stakeholders to master digital transformation varies greatly and depends on their level of development and digital readiness. Developed countries are in many ways better equipped to deal with the growing role of digital platforms than countries with limited resources and capabilities. The aviation, travel and tourism industry has been at the forefront of digital innovation, but industry and technology trends suggest that further change lies ahead. The sector has been an early adopter of digital technologies and platforms, but steep demand for travel, driven by a growing middle class in emerging markets and the increasing importance of digital experiences, implies that further digitalization will be vital if the expectations of tomorrow’s consumers are to be met.

Tolls on the Bridge Over the Digital Divide? An Economic and Regulatory Analysis of Over-the-Top Services in a Developing Market

Over-the-top (OTT) services are value-added applications such as streaming media, messaging, or voice calling that utilize service provider networks for delivery without being under the control of the network service provider. In many cases, the OTT services compete with services offered by the network operator themselves, such as when consumers use VoIP services like Skype or messaging services like WhatsApp instead of voice calling or short message service (SMS) offered by mobile wireless carriers. In most countries, network operators are under statutory obligation to carry OTT traffic, and while they may receive revenue by charging for this carriage at the rate of regular data traffic, they forgo the higher revenues earned by charging for calls or messages directly. While this has been a boon for consumers, it is having negative impacts on the revenues, forecasts, and infrastructure investments of network service providers. The issue of infrastructure investment is particularly sensitive in developing countries, where the need to create new infrastructure is substantial, it is difficult to attract investment, few alternative service providers exist if an incumbent leaves the market, and average revenue per user is already relatively low. Regulators in these markets face difficult choices due to the desire to bring better and lower-cost services to underserved consumers while also encouraging competition, innovation, and investment in infrastructure. The rapid introduction of OTT services has affected the long-term revenue forecasts for existing service providers, challenging the models used for existing infrastructure investments and payback periods. Telcos and network service providers are also being forced to consider new business models for the future, including changes requiring regulatory approval. In this paper, we consider the case of Rwanda, where we analyze data collected directly by the telecommunications regulatory authority. Using a quantitative and qualitative mixed-methods approach, we investigate the economic and regulatory impact of over-the-top services on the mobile telecommunications market in Rwanda. This data is used to analyze and predict future revenue streams from traditional and value-added sources. This analysis is used to consider the evolving business and revenue models necessary to support ongoing operations and future investment, and regulatory changes that may be required to enable this evolution. The analysis serves a model not only for Rwanda, but for many developing countries facing similar questions around the impact of OTT services on revenue, predictions, infrastructure investment, competition, and appropriate regulation.

How Data Will Enable the Shift Towards the Productisation of Legal Services

AbstractSimon Drane writes that the next decade will see a shift within legal service provision, where it will transition from a model which is predominantly geared around internal work processes to one that is geared around customer outcomes. Law firms will complete their evolution from a bill by the hour service-based model to something closer to a product subscription model. This shift will deliver growth, sustainable recurring revenues at high margins and new higher value service opportunities. At the core of this shift is the changing nature of consumption driven by consumer technology and the inexorable drive for base level information to become free. Law firms are sitting on vast quantities of data, and yet very few are currently harnessing this effectively in their offerings. The effective use of data combined with technology will allow innovative organisations to provide a new form of productised offering which will not only drive new recurring revenues but will allow them to offer higher value business advisory services. Whereas effective use of data within the organisation will lead to better evolutionary efficiency, quality and risk management, the use of data externally for clients will lead to more revolutionary changes. It will also blur the lines further between traditional law firms and LegalTech product businesses, in the way alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) and the Big Four are already exploring.

Landscapes of financial exclusion: Alternative financial service providers and the dual financial service delivery system

AbstractThis research addresses equity in geographic access to financial services. As financial products and services continue to become more accessible and affordable, many low‐ to moderate‐income Americans remain unbanked and underbanked, relying instead upon informal, alternative financial service providers, including check cashing outlets and payday lenders. While geographic access to affordable financial products and services assists in the successful asset building strategies of economically vulnerable households, concerns that access to financial services is uneven persist. This article uses geographic information systems and spatial binary logistic regression analysis to test the hypothesis that sociodemographic characteristics and mortgage lending variables have a predictive relationship on the presence of financial deserts—census tracts where check cashing outlets are more prevalent than banks—in southeastern Pennsylvania. Results of comparison of means and regression analysis reveal that these tracts are associated with higher than average population density, lower levels of median household income, a higher proportion of Black and Latinx residents, and higher levels of mortgage application denial. This article contributes to the ongoing debate over the emergence of a two‐tiered or dual financial service delivery system, whereby financial products and services are bifurcated based on socioeconomic status and geography.