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熊彼特
蚂蚁在背
来认识下这家让银行老板们冷汗直冒的金融公司
Schumpeter
Ants in your pants
Meet the financial firm that makes bank bosses break into cold sweats
在西方国家,人们常常会谈到美国的科技占据主导地位。但从亚洲的角度来看,这种说法似乎站不住脚。在亚洲,用手机就可向街头艺人和路边的鱼贩付钱。本专栏作者刚从那里回到纽约就感受到了冲击。在纽约,大多数情况下买东西时都要在各种单据上签名,而PIN码则被视为不可靠,难以被人们接受。在美国,只有2%的信用卡及借记卡交易是以PIN码验证,整个国家一年要开出190亿张支票。
IN WESTERN countries it is common to talk about American technology being dominant. From an Asian perspective that seems off. Fresh from visiting the region, where buskers and kerbside fishmongers can be paid by presenting a phone, Schumpeter has found it a shock being back in New York. There, buying most things involves signing bits of paper and PIN numbers are viewed as dangerously transgressive. Only 2% of credit- and debit-card transactions in America are authenticated with PIN numbers; 19bn cheques are written in the country every year.
亚洲公司已超越西方,提供了一种新的金融技术模式。一个显然的案例就是蚂蚁金服。这是一家支付公司,与中国互联网公司两大巨头之一的阿里巴巴有关联(另一家是腾讯,其无所不在的通讯应用微信中也有支付功能)。蚂蚁金服在中国广受欢迎,同时也有进军海外的野心。它已是世界最具价值的“金融科技”公司,估值600亿美元,在国内有5.2亿支付用户,在海外的合作企业(主要分布在亚洲)也有1.12亿用户。5月,它签署了一项协议,在美国数百万家零售店中安装其支付系统。蚂蚁金服目前正在收购经营汇款业务的速汇金(MoneyGram)。这家公司总部位于德克萨斯州,在两百多个国家开展业务。
Asian firms have leapfrogged ahead, offering a new model of financial technology. Exhibit A is Ant Financial, a payments company affiliated with Alibaba, one of China’s two giant internet firms (the other is Tencent, whose WeChat messaging app is ubiquitous and supports payments). Ant is popular in China and has ambitions outside it. Already the world’s most valuable “fintech” firm, worth $60bn, it has 520m payments customers at home and its affiliates abroad have 112m, mainly in Asia. In May it signed a deal to install its payments system in millions of American retail outlets. Ant is in the process of buying MoneyGram, a Texas-based money-transfer firm active in over 200 countries.
一位在传统银行业备受尊敬的高管说,因为蚂蚁金服,他晚上都睡不着觉。在贸易保护主义者看来,中国公司意图控制世界金融体系,这家公司便是证据。对消费者来说,蚂蚁金服或许可以在这个安逸的行业里促进竞争。
One admired boss in the conventional banking industry says Ant keeps him awake at night. For protectionists, the firm is evidence of a Chinese plot to control the world’s financial plumbing. For consumers, it could boost competition in a cosy industry.
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