數位貨幣--螞蟻集團與金融科技的成熟

Digital money 

數位貨幣

Ant Group and fintech come of age 

螞蟻集團與金融科技的成熟

A blockbuster listing shows how fintech is revolutionising finance

轟動的上市計畫顯示金融科技如何徹底革新金融

Leaders

Oct 8th 2020 edition

Oct 8th 2020

In 1300 or so Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, introduced Europeans to a monetary marvel witnessed in China. The emperor, he wrote, “causes the bark of trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money all over his country”. Eventually the West also adopted paper money, some six centuries after China invented it. More recent foreign travellers to China have come back agog at the next big step for money: the total disappearance of paper, replaced by pixels on phone screens.

公元1300年左右，威尼斯商人馬可·波羅（Marco Polo）向歐洲人介紹在中國目睹的貨幣奇蹟。他寫道，皇帝「使樹皮做成像紙的東西，當作錢幣通行全國」。在中國發明紙幣大約六個世紀之後，西方也終於採用。近期到中國旅行的外籍遊客返國後，也興高采烈談論錢幣演進的下一步：紙幣全部消失，取而代之的是手機螢幕上的像素。

China’s pre-eminence in digital money is likely to be on display in the next few weeks with the monster listing of Ant Group, its largest fintech firm, in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Measured by cash raised, it will probably be the biggest initial public offering in history, beating Saudi Aramco’s last year. Once listed, Ant, which was formed in 2004, could have a similar value to JPMorgan Chase, the world’s biggest bank, which traces its roots to 1799. Ant’s rise worries hawks in the White House and enthralls global investors. It portends a bigger transformation of how the financial system works—not just in China but around the world.

中國在數位貨幣領域的領先地位，可能在未來幾周展現在世人眼前：最大金融科技公司螞蟻集團將在香港和上海隆重上市。以籌資規模計算，這可能擊敗去年沙烏地阿拉伯國家石油公司，成為歷來最大的首次公開發行股票（IPO）案。一旦股票掛牌交易，成立於2004年的螞蟻金服，市值堪比起源於1799年的世界最大銀行摩根大通。螞蟻金服的興起讓白宮鷹派憂心忡忡，全球投資人則興致勃勃。這預吿金融體系運作方式面臨更大的變革----不只在中國，在全世界也是。

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s boss, and others have kept a wary and admiring eye on Ant for years. Spun off from Alibaba, an e-commerce firm, it has over 1bn users, mostly in China, and its payments network carried $16trn of transactions last year, connecting 80m merchants. Payments are just the appetiser. Users can borrow money, choose from 6,000 investment products, and buy health insurance. Imagine if main-street banks, Wall Street’s brokers, Boston’s asset managers and Connecticut’s insurers were all shrunk to fit into a single app designed in Silicon Valley that almost everyone used. Other Chinese firms, notably Tencent, which owns the WeChat app, also operate cutting-edge fintech arms.

摩根大通執行長戴蒙（Jamie Dimon）和其他人對螞蟻金服關注多年，既戒慎又欽佩。螞蟻金服從電商公司阿里巴巴分拆出來，如今擁有超過10億用戶，主要在中國。其支付網路去年交易額達到16兆美元，連結8,000萬個商家。支付只是開胃菜。用戶可以借錢、有6,000種投資商品可供選擇，還能購買健康保險。想像假如主要街道銀行、華爾街券商、波士頓資產管理人和康乃狄克州的保險公司，全縮進一個由矽谷設計、幾乎人人使用的應用程式（App）。其他中國公司，尤其是微信App母公司騰訊，也經營著尖端的金融科技部門。

China is not alone. The pandemic has supercharged activity elsewhere. Alongside the surge in global e-commerce and remote working there has been an accompanying boom in digital payments, which have jumped by 52% at Venmo, an American network, compared with last year, and by 142% at Mercado Pago, a Latin American fintech. Parisian “farmers’ markets, pizza firms and Singaporean hawkers have upgraded their systems so they can be paid instantly without physical contact or cash. Investors sense a tectonic shift, like the one that shook retailing. Conventional banks now account for only 72% of the stockmarket value of the global banking and payments industry, down from 96% in 2010.

不單是中國，疫情也已加速其他地區的活動。伴隨著全球電子商務和遠距工作激增而來的，是數位支付大行其道。美國行動支付網路Venmo的數位支付比去年躍增52％，拉丁美洲金融科技公司Mercado Pago增142％。巴黎的農夫市集、披薩公司和新加坡小販已升級他們的系統，無需碰觸或現金支付就可立即收到付款。投資者感受到一種結構性變革，就像昔日零售業為之震撼一般。傳統銀行現在僅占全球銀行和支付產業股票市值72％，低於2010年的96％。

If the surge in digital finance is universal, the business models behind it are not. In Latin America look out for digital banks and e-commerce pioneers such as Nubank and MercadoLibre, owner of Mercado Pago. In South-East Asia Grab and Gojek, two ride-hailing services, are becoming “super-apps” with financial arms. Fintech firms now provide the majority of consumer loans in Sweden. In America credit-card firms such as Visa (the world’s most valuable financial firm), digital-finance giants such as PayPal (the sixth) and the big banks both co-operate and compete. Tech giants such as Apple and Alphabet are dipping their toes in, tempted by the financial industry’s $1.5trn global pool of profits.

如果數位金融興起是舉世皆然，背後的商業模式則各不相同。在拉丁美洲，要找數位銀行和電商先驅，例如Nubank或Mercado Pago母公司MercadoLibre。東南亞的兩大叫車服務公司Grab和Gojek，已成具有金融部門的「超級App」。瑞典的金融科技公司，如今提供大多數的消費者貸款。美國的信用卡公司（如Visa，全球市值最大金融公司）、數位金融巨頭（如PayPal，第六大），與大型銀行既互相合作又彼此競爭。科技巨頭如蘋果和字母正涉足金融業，爭食全球1.5兆美元的獲利大餅。

There is much to be excited about. At its best, fintech offers big gains in efficiency. If the world’s listed banks cut expenses by a third, the saving would be worth $80 a year for every person on Earth. Ant makes razor-thin margins on payments and takes minutes to grant a loan. Gone are the days of getting gouged by money-changers in airports. Firms such as TransferWise and Airwallex offer exchange services that are cheaper and faster.

有許多事令人激動。最佳情況下，金融科技可大舉提高效率。如果全球的上市銀行削減三分之一開支，那麼省下的錢相當於地球上每人每年多出80美元。螞蟻金服支付業務賺取微薄利潤，核撥貸款只需數分鐘。在機場被貨幣兌換商敲竹槓［叮嚀：「挖苦」擺在這上下文顯得很突兀，可見不是貼切的譯法哦］的日子已成往事。如TransferWise和Airwallex等公司，提供更便宜、快速的換匯服務。

Digitisation also promises to broaden the spread of finance. Reaching customers will be easier and data will make loan underwriting more accurate. Firms like Square and Stripe help small businesses connect to the digital economy. In India and Africa digital finance can free people from dodgy moneylenders and decrepit banks. By creating their own digital currencies, governments may be able to bypass the conventional banking system and tax, take deposits from, and make payments to citizens at the touch of a button. Compare that with the palaver of Uncle Sam posting stimulus cheques this year.

數位化也可望使金融服務更廣而普及［叮嚀：諸如「普惠金融」、「競合」這些詞簡潔漂亮，但未對照原文的讀者，乍看之下可能不知所云，第一次提到時，還是簡述一下為宜。切記譯文三原則「信、達、雅」，信最重要，達排在雅之前］。接觸客戶將更容易，數據也使貸款審核更精確。Square和Stripe等公司幫助小型企業連結數位經濟。在印度和非洲，數位金融可以使人們擺脫狡猾的錢莊和破舊的銀行。創立自家的數位貨幣，讓各國政府只需按個鍵，［這句譯得不知所云哦----“便可繞過傳統的銀行系統和稅務，提取存款並向公民支付”，因為原文拆句有誤］便可直接向公民徵稅、收取存款和撥付款項，繞過傳統銀行體系。相形之下，山姆大叔今年發放振興支票，就顯得曠日費時。

Yet the fintech conquest also brings two risks. The first is that it could destabilise the financial system. Fintech firms swarm to the most profitable parts of the industry, often leaving less profit and most of the risk with traditional lenders. Fully 98% of loans issued through Ant in China ultimately sit on the books of banks, which pay it a fee. Ant is eventually expected to capture a tenth or more of Chinese banking’s profits. Lumbering lenders in the rich world are already crushed by low interest rates, legacy IT systems and huge compliance costs. If they are destabilised it could spell trouble, because banks still perform crucial economic functions, including holding people’s deposits and transforming these short-term liabilities into long-term loans for others.

然而，金融科技征服市場也帶來兩個風險。一是可能擾亂金融體系。金融科技公司湧向產業中最賺錢的部分，往往把較沒利潤的生意和大部分風險留給傳統放款者。經由螞蟻金服在中國發放的貸款當中，有整整98％最後落腳銀行帳簿上，銀行則支付螞蟻一筆費用。［“最後卻成呆帳”譯文出自哪段原文？98%變呆帳，很恐怖！］螞蟻金服最終可望從中國銀行業的獲利抽成十分之一或更多。富國行動遲緩的放款機構已被低利率、老舊的IT系統和龐大的法遵成本壓得喘不過氣來。一旦銀行體系不穩定，可能預告麻煩將至，因為銀行仍然發揮重要的經濟功能，包括持有人民的存款，並將這些短期債務轉化成對他人的長期貸款。

The second danger is that the state and fintech “platform” firms could grab more power from individuals. Network effects are integral to the fintech model—the more people use a platform the more useful it is and likely that others feel drawn to it. So the industry is prone towards monopoly. And if fintech gives even more data to governments and platforms, the potential for surveillance, manipulation and cyber-hacks will rise. In China Ant is a cog in the Communist Party’s apparatus of control—one reason it is often unwelcome abroad. When Facebook, a firm not known for its ethical conduct, launched a digital currency, Libra, last year, it caused a global backlash.

第二個危險是，政府和金融科技「平台」公司可能從個人身上奪取更多權力。網路效應對金融科技經營模式不可或缺—平台使用的人愈多就愈有用，也可能吸引其他人，因此產業易被壟斷。如果金融科技讓政府和平台取得更多數據，則監視、操縱和網路駭客入侵的可能性將增加。在中國，螞蟻集團是共產黨控制機器中的一顆小齒輪，這是它在國外通常不受歡迎的原因。不以道德行為著稱的臉書去年推出數位貨幣Libra時，引發全球強烈反彈。

As the fintech surge continues, governments should take a holistic view of financial risk that includes banks and fintech firms—Chinese regulators rightly snuffed out Ant’s booming business in loan securitisation, which had echoes of the subprime fiasco. Governments should also lower barriers to entry so as to boost competition. Singapore and India have cheap, open, bank-to-bank payment systems which America could learn from. Europe has flexible banking that lets customers switch accounts easily. Last, the rise of fintech must be tied to a renewed effort to protect people’s privacy from giant companies and the state. So long as fintech can be made safer, open and respectful of individual rights, then a monetary innovation led by China will once again change the world for the better.■

隨著金融科技浪潮持續，各國政府應全面檢視金融風險，包括銀行和金融科技公司。中國監管機構制止螞蟻金服蓬勃發展的貸款證券化業務，是正確舉措，畢竟那種業務令人聯想到次貸災難。政府也應降低入行門檻，以促進競爭。新加坡和印度有便宜、開放、銀行對銀行的付款系統，可供美國學習。歐洲擁有靈活的銀行體系，可讓客戶輕易切換帳戶。最後，金融科技的興起必須受一個條件約束：更致力於保護人們的隱私，免受大企業和國家侵害。只要金融科技能更加安全、開放和尊重個人權利，那麼由中國領導的貨幣創新，將再次使世界變得更好。