《经济学人》双语：科技巨头们进军金融业？

原文标题：
Technology and money
Silicon Wall Street
Big tech pushes further into finance
技术与金钱
硅谷华尔街
大型科技公司进一步进军金融业
 
The move may upset regulators—and their own customers
此举可能会让监管机构和客户感到不安

[Para.1]
With no end to the tech downturn in sight, the industry’s titans are eyeing new markets.
目前科技行业持续低迷，行业巨头们正在锁定新的市场。
 
The bigger, the better: in the past year the combined revenue of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Meta reached $1.5trn, so further growth that moves the needle can only come from a giant business.
市场规模越大越好：过去一年，Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果、微软和Meta公司的营收总和达1.5万亿美元， 因此，只有依靠更大的市场业务才能实现进一步增长。
 
One candidate is finance.
金融业便是一个选择。
 
What is more, that industry generates petabytes of data, the crunching of which is a core competency of tech firms.And it is dominated by stuffy, old institutions.
此外，该行业产生了拍字节级的数据，而对这些数据的处理正是科技公司的核心竞争力，传统老牌公司在这方面占绝对优势。
 
For a tech CEO, it looks ripe for disruption.
对科技公司的总裁而言，颠覆已然水到渠成。
 

[Para.2]
One such boss is Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
微软的萨提亚·纳德拉就是这样一位老板。
 
On December 12th his company announced a ten-year deal to provide cloud-computing and data-analytics services to the London Stock Exchange Group.
12月12日，微软宣布与纽约证券交易所集团达成为期十年的交易，为其提供云计算和数据分析服务。
 
As part of the transaction, Microsoft has agreed to pay £1.5bn ($1.9bn) for a 4% stake in the financial-services firm.
作为交易的一部分，微软同意支付15亿英镑（19亿美元）收购这家金融服务公司4%的股份。
 
This follows a tie-up last year between Google Cloud Platform, Alphabet’s cloud business, and CME, one of the world’s busiest derivatives exchanges.
去年，微软和谷歌云平台、Alphabet云业务和全球最繁忙的金融衍生品交易所之一芝加哥商品交易所就达成合作。
 
Weeks later, Amazon Web Services (AWS), that giant’s cloud division, announced a similar arrangement with the Nasdaq stock exchange.
几周后，亚马逊的云部门AWS宣布与达斯达克证券交易所达成类似合作。
 
[Para.3]
It is not just exchanges. Almost all banks and insurers now use big tech’s cloud services, including increasingly sophisticated and tailor-made analytics, often powered by artificial intelligence.
不仅仅是交易所，现在几乎所有的银行和保险公司都在使用大型科技公司的云端服务，例如一般由人工智能赋能的越发复杂化和定制化的分析。
 
In October the Options Clearing Corporation became the first clearing house to get permission from American regulators to move its core operations on to the cloud.
十月份，期权清算公司成为第一家获得美国监管机构批准将核心业务移入云端的清算公司。
 
[Para.4]
Another big market is digital payments.
另一大市场是数字支付。
 
These make purchases smoother for customers, while allowing tech firms to collect data to improve the overall user experience on their platforms, explains Alina Lantsberg of Oliver Wyman, a consultancy.
这让客户消费更加便捷，同时科技公司也能够收集到数据，以便改善用户的综合使用体验，奥纬咨询公司的阿丽娜·兰斯伯格解释说。
 
Three in four iPhone users have now activated Apple Pay on their devices, compared with a third in 2018, according to Bernstein, a broker.
经销商伯恩斯坦表示，与2018年的三分之一相比，现在已有四分之三的苹果用户在设备上激活了苹果支付。
 
Apple, Google and Meta also offer peer-to-peer transfers.
苹果、谷歌和Meta也提供个人转账服务。
 
[Para.5]
Amazon and Apple are experimenting with credit.
亚马逊和苹果正在尝试信贷服务。
 
Amazon helps merchants on its marketplace to secure loans, and in June Apple announced plans for a “buy now, pay later” (bnpl) service.
亚马逊帮助商家在市场交易中获取贷款，苹果在六月份也公布了“先用后付”(bnpl)服务计划。
 
Both firms already sell credit cards. Apple’s credit cards are issued and underwritten by Goldman Sachs, a bank.
两家公司都已在销售信用卡，苹果的信用卡由投资银行高盛集团发行并承销。
 
But in June the iPhone-maker said it would handle the lending for its bnpl service. That may explain why it acquired Credit Kudos, a credit-reference agency, in March.
但6月份苹果手机制造商表示会处理先用后付服务的贷款，这也可能是苹果三月份收购信用参考代理公司Credit Kudos的原因。
 
Apple does not publish results for its consumer-finance business, but analysts put its annual revenue at between $1.7bn and $3bn—less than 1% of Apple’s total but not to be sniffed at.
苹果没有公布其消费金融业务的业绩，但分析师推测其每年收入在17亿和30亿之间，小于苹果公司的总营收的1%但仍不容小觑。
 
[Para.6]
Two factors could limit big tech’s financial ambitions.
有两个因素会限制大型科技公司的金融目标。
 
One is that financial firms are valued cloud customers, which could be lost if big tech starts to feel like competition.
其一，金融公司是重要的云客户，但科技公司一旦想要竞争，就可能会失去这些客户。
 
That was said to be the reason why Google binned its attempt to offer online checking and savings accounts in 2021.
据说这也是谷歌在2021年放弃提供电子支票和储蓄账户的原因。
 
Amazon and Microsoft have their own cloud relationships to nurture.
亚马逊和微软也有自己的云计算关系要培养。
 
[Para.7]
Then there are the regulators, many of whom already hold a dim view of big tech and are watching its advances into finance closely.
其二是监管机构，大多数监管机构不太看好大型科技公司并密切关注着其在金融领域的发展。
 
The Bank of England has said it wants to stress-test cloud providers because so many banks use their services.
英国央行表示，考虑到很多银行都在使用云计算服务，希望对供应商进行压力测试。
 
In America the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered the tech giants to share information on their payment systems.
美国消费者金融保护局要求科技巨头共享支付系统的信息。
 
The further tech moves into finance, the more it may have to be treated like a bank.
科技公司越深入金融领域，就越可能需要像对待银行一样对待它。
 
There is only so much disruption that financial regulators will brook.
毕竟金融监管机构对扰乱的容忍度是有限的。
 
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量580左右）
原文出自：2022年12月17日《The Economist》Business版块。

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理:  Guo Zhenyan

本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
计算机存储单位一般用比特(bit最小的存储单位），字节(Byte)、千字节(KB)、兆字节(MB)、吉字节(GB)、太字节(TB)、拍字节(PB)、艾字节(EB)、泽它字节(ZB，又称皆字节)、尧它字节(YB)表示。
 
萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella），生于1967年的海德拉巴的Nizams市，并在印度的门戈洛尔大学获得了电子和通信的工程学士学位，随后前往美国留学，在威斯康辛大学攻读计算机硕士，后来在芝加哥大学攻读MBA。现任微软公司CEO、董事长。
 
P2P transfer的全称是Peer-to-Peer，即通过手机或者网络进行的个人之间的即时转账。P2P基本有两种模式，第一种模式是直接通过银行机构进行个人之间相互转账。另外一种模式是通过第三方机构来担保存放现金，进行相互转账。P2P转账的优点是可以到账及时，基本没有任何手续费，非常方便。缺点是转账额度有限，不能进行大额转账；而且由于是即时转账，转账失误之后申诉比较困难，转账基本不可逆，资金追回比较困难。
 
【重点句子】（3 个）
For a tech CEO, it looks ripe for disruption.
对科技公司的总裁而言，颠覆已然水到渠成。
 
Two factors could limit big tech’s financial ambitions.
有两个因素会限制大型科技公司的金融目标。
 
There is only so much disruption that financial regulators will brook.
毕竟金融监管机构对扰乱的容忍度是有限的。