Banking services

银行业

Tech’s raid on the banks

科技对银行的洗劫

Digital disruption is coming to banking at last

银行业终于迎来了科技行业的颠覆

May 2nd 2019

OVER THE past two decades people across the world have seen digital services transform the economy and their lives. Taxis, films, novels, noodles, doctors and dog-walkers can all be summoned with a tap of a screen. Giant firms in retailing, carmaking and the media have been humbled by new competitors. Yet one industry has withstood the tumult: banking. In rich countries it is perfectly normal to queue in branches, correspond with your bank by post and deposit cheques stamped with the logo of firms founded in the 19th century.

在过去20年里，世界各地的人们目睹了数字服务改变了经济和他们的生活。出租车、电影、小说、面条、医生和遛狗者都可以通过轻触手机屏来联络召集。零售业、汽车制造业和传媒业的巨头们已经被新的竞争者压垮了。然而，有一个行业经受住了动荡:银行业。在富裕国家，分几支长队在银行排队等候是再常见不过的事情了，银行与人们的邮寄，支票存款密切相关，那些支票都印着19世纪，公司成立时就有的标志。

词汇

Summon/传唤；召集

Tumult/骚动；骚乱

Yet, as our special report this week explains, technology is at last shaking up banking. In Asia payment apps are a way of life for over 1bn users. In the West mobile banking is reaching critical mass—49% of Americans bank on their phones—and tech giants are muscling in. Apple unveiled a credit card with Goldman Sachs on March 25th. Facebook is proposing a payments service to let users buy tickets and settle bills .

然而，正如我们本周的特别报道所解释的，科技最终正在撼动银行业。在亚洲，支付应用是逾10亿用户的一种生活方式。在西方，移动银行业务已经达到了至关重要的规模——49%的美国人通过手机进行银行业务——而科技巨头们也在奋力挺进。3月25日，苹果公司推出了一张高盛信用卡。脸书正计划推出一项支付服务，让用户购买小票并结账。

The implications are profound because banks are not ordinary firms. It is one thing for Blockbuster Video to be wiped out by a technological shift, but quite another if the victim is Bank of America. It is not just that banks have over $100trn of assets globally. Using the difficult trick of “maturity transformation” (turning deposits that you can demand back at any time into long-term loans) they enable savers to defer consumption and investment and borrowers to bring them forward. Banks are so vital that the economy reels when they stumble, as the crisis of 2008-09 showed.

其影响是深远的，因为银行不是普通的公司。一场技术变革淘汰了Blockbuster视频网站是一件小事，但如果受害者是美国银行(Bank of America)，情况就完全不同了。银行之所以重要，不仅仅是因为它在全球拥有超过1000万亿美元的资产。利用“期限转换”(将随时可以提取的存款转化为长期贷款)这一困难的技巧，储户可以推迟消费和投资，借款者可以提前还款。正如2008年至2009年的危机所显示的那样，银行是如此重要，以至于当它陷入困境，经济发展也会随之受阻。

词汇

maturity transformation/期限转换，到期日转换

Bankers and politicians may thus be tempted to resist technological change. But that would be wrong because its benefits—a leaner, more user-friendly and more open financial system—easily outweigh the risks.

因此，银行家和政治家可能会抵制技术变革。但这是错误的，因为它的好处——更精简、更友好、更开放的金融体系——更容易压制风险。

词汇

Leaner/简洁的（lean的比较级）

Banking is late to the smartphone age because entrepreneurs have been put off by regulations. And, since the financial crisis, Western banks have been preoccupied with repairing their balance-sheets and old-fashioned cost-cutting. Late is better than never, however. Several new business models are emerging. In Asia payment apps are bundled with e-commerce, chat and ride-hailing services offered by firms such as Alibaba and Tencent in China and Grab in South-East Asia. These networks link to banks but are vying to control the customer relationship. In America and Europe big banks are still more or less in control and are rushing to offer digital products—JPMorgan Chase can open a deposit account in five minutes. But threats loom. Mobile-only “neobanks” that do not bear the cost of branches are nibbling at customer bases. Payments firms like PayPal work with Western banks but are expected to capture a greater share of profits. Lucrative niches like foreign exchange and asset management are being harried by new entrants.

银行业之所以进入智能手机时代较晚，是因为监管令企业家望而却步。而且，自金融危机以来，西方银行一直专注于修复资产负债表和老式的成本削减。然而，迟做总比不做好。一些新的商业模式正在出现。在亚洲，支付应用与电子商务、聊天和叫车服务捆绑在一起，这些服务由阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)等公司在中国提供，Grab则在东南亚提供。这些网络连接到银行，但都在争夺用户资源。在美国和欧洲，大银行仍然或多或少地控制着局面，并急于提供数字产品——摩根大通可以在五分钟内开立一个存款账户。但面临的威胁隐约可见。只提供手机的“新银行”不承担分支机构的成本，正在蚕食客户基础。像PayPal这样的支付公司与西方银行合作，但预计将获得更大的利润份额。外汇和资产管理等利润丰厚的利基市场正受到新进入者的干扰。

词汇

Bundle/捆绑

Vying/争夺（vie的现在分词）

Loom/可怕地出现；朦胧地出现；隐约可见

Nibble/细咬；一点一点地咬；吹毛求疵

Lucrative/有利可图的，赚钱的；合算的

Niches/利基市场；小生境

The pace of change will accelerate. Younger people no longer stay with the same bank as their parents—15% of British 18- to 23-year-olds use a neobank. Tech firms that people trust, such as Apple and Amazon, are natural candidates to grow big financial arms. The biggest four American banks are spending a total of over $25bn a year on perfecting better customer applications and learning to mine data more cleverly. Venture-capital firms invested $37bn in upstart financial firms last year.

变革的步伐将会加快。年轻人不再像他们的父母一样坚持使用同一家银行——在18岁至23岁的英国人中，15%的人使用新银行。人们信任的科技公司，如苹果(Apple)和亚马逊(Amazon)，是发展大型金融部门的天然候选者。美国四大银行每年在完善更好的客户应用程序和学习更精确地挖掘数据方面的支出总计超过250亿美元。风险资本公司去年向新兴金融公司投资了370亿美元。