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FOR those still trying to work out what exactly “fintech” involves, we are sorry to bring you this update from China, a world leader in mixing finance with technology. Fintech is passé; the hot new thing is “techfin”. This ungainly portmanteau was coined by Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba, an e-commerce giant, who announced on September 10th that he plans to step down in a year’s time (see article). It is not mere semantics, but indicative of the way that China’s fintech upstarts—firms that have excited investors, frightened banks and attracted legions of users—are adjusting as their reach is limited by regulators.
对仍在努力弄清楚“金融科技”（Fintech）究竟涉及哪些领域的人来说，我们很遗憾地向介绍中国的这一最新消息——中国是金融与技术混合的全球领导者。金融科技过时了；现在热门的新事物是“科技金融”（techfin）。这个词由电商巨头阿里巴巴董事长马云创造。马云在9月10日宣布将在一年后辞去阿里巴巴董事长一职。这个词不仅仅是语义学方面的，而是中国金融科技创业企业的表达方式：他们因为业务扩展受到监管机构的限制而正在进行调整——这些创业企业拥有热情的投资者，让银行恐惧，吸引大批用户。
The landscape of Chinese fintech is dominated by two players: Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, and Tencent, best known for WeChat, its social-media network. Ant is estimated to be worth $150bn, only a little less than HSBC, putting it among the world’s most valuable financial firms. Tencent’s financial services are wrapped inside Tencent Holdings, which has a $400bn market capitalisation. They will, if left unchecked, grow much bigger. China’s government must now decide whether to try to slow their rise.
中国金融科技领域有两个霸主：阿里巴巴的下属公司蚂蚁金融和凭社交媒体微信闻名的腾讯。据估计，蚂蚁金融市值1500亿美元，仅略低于汇丰银行，是世界上市值最高的金融企业之一。腾讯的金融服务包含在市值4000亿美元的腾讯控股中。如果任由发展，这两家企业会变得更大。中国政府现在必须决定是否试图减缓其崛起速度。
Both firms got their start in payments. Ant stems from Alipay, created in 2004 to make online shopping easier. Tenpay was launched in 2005 for QQ, Tencent’s online-messaging platform, and was later grafted onto WeChat. Both have boomed by linking mobile apps with offline payments. Almost all merchants in China, from the humblest vegetable stall to cafés where customers can feed the pets and upwards, provide QR codes to be scanned by phone in order to pay. According to iResearch, a consultancy, mobile transactions in China reached nearly 120trn yuan ($18.7trn) last year, 100 times more than in 2013—and more than all transactions handled worldwide by Visa and MasterCard combined.
两家公司都从支付起家。蚂蚁金融源于创建于2004年的支付宝，是为了网购的便捷。财付通是腾讯在2005年为QQ于推出的，后来移植到微信上。通过用移动应用进行线下支付，两者都蓬勃发展。几乎所有中国商家，从最低层的蔬菜摊到允许顾客喂宠物的咖啡馆，都提供二维码，让手机扫描支付。根据咨询机构艾瑞咨询（iResearch）的数据，2017年，中国的移动交易额达到近120万亿元人民币（18.7万亿美元），是2013年的100倍——超过Visa和万事达卡全球交易总和。
At the moment Alipay has 54% of the mobile-payment market, to Tenpay’s 40%. But Steven Zhu of Pacific Epoch, a research firm, predicts that within five years Tenpay will pull level. Its main advantage is that WeChat, the main entry point for people using Tenpay, has more than 1bn active users. Alipay, as of early 2017, had about 520m active users in China. On Alipay’s side are the fact that people spend more on it and its rapid expansion overseas. It already works with more than 250 financial firms abroad, so that Chinese tourists can use it.
目前，支付宝的动支付市场份额为54％，财付通占40％。不过，市场研究机构Pacific Epoch的Steven Zhu预测，五年内财付通将会占到半壁江山。财付通的一个主要优势在于使用财付通的用户的主要入口微信拥有超过10亿的活跃用户。截至2017年初，支付宝在中国拥有约5.2亿活跃用户。在支付宝里，人们其实花费更多，并在海外迅速扩张。它与国外250多家金融公司合作，这样能让中国游客在海外使用支付宝。
But Ant and Tencent are more interested in hooking users on other financial services than in payments alone. Once a user is on one of their platforms, mutual funds, insurance products and virtual credit cards are accessible with a tap of a finger on a phone. Online banks specialising in small loans are just a few clicks away. The scale of these activities is breathtaking. Alipay launched Yu’e Bao (“leftover treasure”) in 2013 as a money-market fund to give customers a small return on their idle cash. By June it had some $210bn in assets under management, making it the world’s biggest money-market fund by a wide margin.
不过，除了支付，蚂蚁金融和腾讯更愿意吸引用户用到其他金融服务。一旦用户进入它们的平台中的一个应用，就可以通过手机上的指令轻松访问共同基金、保险产品和虚拟信用卡。只需点击几下即可获得专门提供小额贷款的在线银行。这些金融活动的规模令人叹为观止。支付宝于2013年推出了余额宝作为货币市场基金，为客户提供闲置现金的小额回报。到6月，它管理着大约210亿美元的资产，使其成为全球最大的货币基金市场。
It is easy to see why big banks want to restrain the fintech dynamos. “If the banks don’t change, we will change the banks,” Mr Ma said in 2008. Some bankers chortled; they are not laughing any more. Kapronasia, a research firm, estimates that fintech firms will take more than 40% of China’s potential payment-card fees by 2020, an annual loss of about $60bn for banks. The fintech firms’ incipient move into retail banking is even more alarming. “This is the most profitable area for banks,” says Linda Sun-Mattison of Bernstein Research. “They don’t want to just get stuck with lower-margin commercial clients.”
很容易理解大银行想要限制金融科技的发展的原因。“如果银行不改变，我们将改变银行，”马云在2008年说道。一些银行家大吃一惊；他们再也笑不起来了。市场研究机构Kapronasia估计，到2020年，金融科技公司将占中国支付卡费用的40％以上，银行每年损失约600亿美元。金融科技公司一开始进入银行的零售业务则更加令人担忧。 “这是银行最赚钱的领域，”伯恩斯坦研究公司的琳达·孙·玛蒂森（Linda Sun-Mattison）说。“他们不想只拥有利润低的企业客户。”
Regulators are more conflicted. By making spending easier, the fintech duo boost consumption, which has long been too low as a share of China’s GDP. They bring financial services to poorer people and force state-owned behemoths to up their game. But their popularity is also an economic risk. As Yu’e Bao shows, they can hoover up savings. “Customers are leaving banks,” says Cliff Sheng of Oliver Wyman, a consultancy. A bigger exodus might destabilise the financial system.
监管机构更加为左右为难。金融科技在简化支出手续的同时推动了消费，而这一部分一直是中国GDP占比很小的部分。这些企业为穷人提供金融服务，并迫使国有银行巨头为之提供支持。但他们的市场份额也会有经济风险。正如余额宝所显示的，金融科技可以节省开支。 “客户正在逐渐离开银行，”咨询公司Oliver Wyman的克里夫·沈（Cliff Sheng）说。 更大规模的外流可能会破坏金融体系的稳定。
So over the past year, regulators have put speed bumps in their way. Under pressure to deflate Yu’e Bao, Ant has capped the amount of cash users can invest or withdraw in a day. The online banks launched by Tencent and Ant respectively, WeBank and MYBank—have also been hindered by deposit caps. And the central bank called off a trial in which Ant and Tencent were developing credit scores on individuals. Instead, they were given stakes in Baihang, a state-owned credit-rating system.
因此，在过去的一年里，监管机构采取了措施，减缓科技金融企业的发展速度。为了应对余额宝的收缩压力，蚂蚁金融限制用户一天投入或提现的金额。由腾讯和蚂蚁金融分别推出的网上银行微众银行和网商银行也受到存款上限的限制。中央银行取消了一项试验，即蚂蚁金融和腾讯对个人信用评级。相反，他们参股国有信用评级体系百航。
Potentially most significant is the launch in July of NetsUnion, a clearing house for online payments. Although it should make mobile payments safer, it will also stand between fintech firms and banks, making it more difficult for Ant and Tencent to drive a hard bargain over fees. Ms Sun-Mattison thinks it only a matter of time before it is used to limit mobile transactions, ostensibly to address concerns such as money-laundering but also protecting banks from competition.
可能最重要的是7月推出的在线支付结算所“网联”。网联虽然会使移动支付更安全，却站在金融科技公司和银行之间，使得蚂蚁金融和腾讯更难以在费用上进行讨价还价。孙·玛蒂森认为，用网联来限制移动交易只是时间问题，表面上是为了解决诸如洗钱等问题，同时也是为了保护银行免受竞争。
All this is the backdrop for the decision by Ant and Tencent to play up technology offerings instead of financial services. It is remarkable how similar their executives can sound. Henry Ma, the vice-president of WeBank, talks of being the “infrastructure provider” to commercial banks. Leiming Chen, general counsel at Ant, talks of giving banks a platform to “connect with users”. The idea for both is that, with their vast user bases and data troves, they can help banks identify smaller borrowers and manage lending risks. Banks put up the capital; Ant and Tencent get “technology fees”. Techfin is not as attention-grabbing as an all-out assault on banks. But as a business model, it is more likely to succeed.
所有这些情况都是蚂蚁和腾讯决定推出技术产品而非金融服务的背景。值得注意的是，他们的高管的理由都很相似。微众银行副总裁马智涛（Henry Ma）谈到成为商业银行的“基础设施提供商”。 蚂蚁的总法律顾问Leiming Chen谈到为银行提供一个“与用户联系”的平台。两者的想法是，凭借其庞大的用户群和数据库，他们可以帮助银行识别较小的借款人并管理贷款风险。银行获得资金；蚂蚁金融和腾讯获得“技术费”。科技金融并不像对银行的全面攻击那样引人注目。作为商业模式，它更有可能取得成功。
编译：李娜
编辑：翻吧君