经济学人2019.5.4/Banking services/part2（完）

The benefits of technological change are likely to be vast. Costs should tumble as branches are shut, creaking mainframe systems retired and bureaucracy culled. If the world’s listed banks chopped expenses by a third, the saving would be worth $80 a year for every person on Earth. In 2000 the Netherlands had more bank branches per head than America; it now has just a third as many. Rotten service will improve—it is easier to get money to a friend using a chat app than it is to ask your bank to transfer cash. The system will get better at its vital job of allocating capital. Richer data will allow banks to take risks that currently baffle underwriters. Fraud should be easier to spot. Lower costs and the democratising effect of social media will give more people better access to finance. And more firms with good ideas should be able to get loans faster, boosting growth.

技术变革所带来的好处也许是巨大的。随着分支机构的关闭、老化的主机系统的关闭和官僚机构的精简，成本应该会大幅下降。如果全球上市银行将支出削减三分之一，那么全球人均每年可节省80美元。2000年，荷兰的人均银行分行数超过美国;现在只有三分之一。糟糕的服务会有所改进——用聊天软件把钱给朋友比让你的银行转账更容易。这一体系将在资本配置这一至关重要的工作上做得更好。充分的数据使得银行有条件承担目前困扰承销商的风险。诈骗行为将更容易被揭发。更低的成本和社会化媒体的民主化效应将使更多的人更好地获得融资。更多有好点子的公司应该能够更快地获得贷款，从而推动经济增长。

词汇

Tumble/摔倒；倒塌；滚动；

Creak/（门、木地板等）嘎吱作响；（过劳或紧张）显得虚弱

Cull/精选；采集（鲜花等）；剔除

Rotten/腐烂的，恶臭的；糟糕的，极坏的；

Baffle/使…困惑；使…受挫折；

Underwriters/ 保险业者，承诺支付者

Yet change also poses risks. Because the financial system is embedded in the economy, innovation tends to create turbulence. The credit card’s arrival in 1950 revolutionised shopping but also sparked America’s consumer-debt culture. Securitisation lubricated capital markets in the 1980s but fuelled the subprime crisis. In addition, it is unclear who will win today’s battle. One dystopian scenario is that power becomes more concentrated, as a few big banks learn to exploit data as ruthlessly as social-media firms do. Imagine a crossbreed of Facebook and Wells Fargo that predicts and manipulates how customers behave and is able to use proprietary economic data to squeeze rivals.

然而，变化也带来了风险。由于金融体系已嵌入经济之中，创新往往会引发动荡。1950年信用卡的出现彻底改变了购物，但也引发了美国消费债务文化。证券化在上世纪80年代润滑了资本市场，但却加剧了次贷危机。此外，目前还不清楚谁将赢得今天的战斗。一种反乌托邦的设想是，随着少数几家大银行学会像社交媒体公司那样无情地挖掘数据，权力变得更加集中。想象一下，Facebook和富国银行(Wells Fargo)的联合企业能够预测和操纵客户的行为，并能够利用专有的经济数据挤压竞争对手。

词汇

Securitisation/  证券化

Lubricate/  使…润滑；给…加润滑油

subprime crisis/次贷危机

dystopian/反面假想国的；反面乌托邦的

scenario/方案；情节；剧本；设想

manipulates/操纵；操作；巧妙地处理；篡改

proprietary/所有的；专利的；私人拥有的

Another dystopia involves fragmentation and destabilisation. Banks could lose depositors to untested neobanks, creating a mismatch between their assets and liabilities that could lead to a credit crunch. If bank customers transact via tech or payment platforms, banks could end up with huge balance-sheets but without a direct connection to their clients. If they thus became unprofitable, they could be broken up, with the job of financing mortgages and absorbing short-term savings left entirely to capital markets, which are volatile.

另一个反乌托邦成分包括分裂和不稳定。银行可能会因为未经测试的新银行而失去储户，造成资产和负债之间的不匹配，从而可能导致信贷紧缩。如果银行客户通过技术或支付平台进行交易，银行最终可能拥有庞大的资产负债表，但与客户没有直接联系。如果它们因此变得无利可图，就可能被拆分，将抵押贷款融资和吸收短期储蓄的工作完全留给动荡不安的资本市场。

词汇

Fragmentation/破碎；[心理]分裂

Liability/责任；债务；倾向；可能性；不利因素

Volatile/不稳定的；爆炸性的；反复无常的

To tap the benefits of technology safely, governments should give consumers control over their data, protecting privacy and preventing firms hoarding information. Innovation-friendly regulation would help; in 2017 the industry faced a regulatory alert every nine minutes (see Finance section). And governments should keep the system’s safety buffers at today’s overall size (global banks hold $7trn of core capital). If new entrants are properly capitalised, central banks could extend to them the lender-of-last-resort facilities that provide shelter in a storm.

为了安全利用技术带来的好处，政府应该让消费者控制自己的数据，保护隐私，防止公司囤积信息。有利于创新的监管将带来帮助;2017年，该行业每9分钟就会面临一次监管警告（看本期金融板块文章）。各国政府应将金融体系的安全缓冲保持在目前的总体规模(全球银行持有7万亿美元的核心资本)。如果新进入者资本充足，各国央行可以向它们提供最后贷款人(lender-of-last-resort)工具，在金融风暴中提供庇护。

词汇

Hoard/贮藏

Banking’s dirty secret is that it is backward, inefficient and hidebound. Banks have formidable lobbying power, however. Wary of change, customers, politicians and unions complain when branches are closed and jobs cut—witness the recent collapse of a German mega-merger that depended on both. Regulators love dealing with a few big firms. The thing is that global growth is sluggish and productivity gains are hard to come by. A smartphone revolution in finance offers one of the best ways to boost the economy and spread the benefits.

银行业的肮脏秘密在于落后、低效和守旧。然而，银行拥有强大的游说力量。由于害怕变革，客户、政客和工会在分支机构关闭和裁员时抱怨连连——人们见证了最近德国一桩依赖于这两方面的大型并购交易的崩溃。监管者喜欢和几家大公司打交道。问题是，全球增长速度乏力，生产率增长难以实现。金融领域的智能手机革命提供了提振经济、分享利益的最佳方案之一。

词汇

Hidebound/死板的；保守的；顽固的；墨守成规的

Formidable/强大的；可怕的；令人敬畏的；

Lobbying/游说

Sluggish/萧条的；迟钝的；行动迟缓的；懒惰的