评论
打印
The recent refusal by US regulators to sign off on Ant Financial’s $1.2bn acquisition of Dallas-based money transfer firm MoneyGram International does not signal the end of the Alibaba-affiliated payments group’s US financial ambitions.
美国监管机构最近拒绝批准蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)以12亿美元收购总部位于达拉斯的汇款公司速汇金国际(MoneyGram International)，并不意味着这家做支付业务的阿里巴巴(Alibaba)关联企业在美国的金融雄心的终结。
On one level, the scuppered deal suggests that Chinese companies, whether state-owned or otherwise, will have an ever harder time winning approval for US acquisitions. The move also confirms that the Americans now believe that the definition of national security — their basis for scrutinising overseas deals — embraces anything related to information and data.
某种程度上，从这一告吹交易可看出无论是国有企业还是其他企业，中国公司在美国的收购活动将越来越难获得批准。此举也证明美国人现在认为国家安全——其审查外国企业收购交易的基础——的定义包含与信息和数据相关的一切。
But Ant Financial’s attempted US play also shows how much technology is undermining the dominance of traditional global titans, especially in the financial sphere. It is especially noteworthy that many of the upstart challengers to banks and other legacy companies increasingly either have a Chinese face or Chinese capital behind them. That, in turn, underscores how some Chinese players have leapfrogged into prominence across the world.
但蚂蚁金服在美国的尝试还显示出，科技正大举破坏全球老牌巨头的统治地位，特别是在金融领域。尤其值得注意的是，在银行和其他传统公司受到的挑战中，越来越多新贵挑战者或是中国面孔，或背后有中国资本。这反过来又突显了一些中国企业已在全球一举成名。
Ant’s attempted takeover of MoneyGram is just one effort by that company to grab a slice of the US financial transactions business. In May it struck a deal with First Data, the payment infrastructure company bought by private equity group KKR in 2007. The joint venture will help the Chinese company install point-of-sale devices for Alipay across the US. It is initially targeting 10m Chinese tourists in the US but eventually hoping to also reach local spenders.
蚂蚁金服试图收购速汇金只是该公司进军美国金融交易业务的一次努力。去年5月它与支付基础设施公司First Data达成了一笔交易，后者于2007年被私人股本集团KKR收购。First Data将帮助蚂蚁金服在美国各地安装支付宝(Alipay) POS设备。蚂蚁金服最初瞄准的是美国的1000万中国游客，但最终也希望能触及当地消费者。
But Ant has so far studiously avoided buying or working with the banks that once stood at the heart of the financial system. Its strategy comes at a time when technological disruption of the financial system looks likely to accelerate. Tech companies that started in unrelated areas, such as ecommerce in the case of Alibaba or video games in the case of Tencent, are increasingly targeting core elements of banking, including payments, money transfers, lending or wealth management. If they succeed, they will play a larger and larger role in determining how capital is allocated globally.
不过迄今为止，蚂蚁金服一直小心避免收购那些曾居于金融体系核心的银行，或与之合作。这一策略出台之际，科技对金融体系的颠覆似乎正在加速。从不相关领域起步的科技公司——如从电子商务起家的阿里巴巴，或从电子游戏发家的腾讯(Tencent)——开始越来越多地瞄准银行核心业务，包括支付、汇款、贷款和理财。如果它们成功了，它们将在决定全球资本分配方面发挥越来越大的作用。
These Chinese challengers have had an easy time making inroads at home. Banks there are largely state-owned behemoths and were established to channel cheap household savings to industry in a template imported from Japan. Even now few Chinese people have credit cards and investment accounts. Many of them are taking their cash straight from the mattress or current account to Alipay and Tenpay. The newcomers have also benefited because Beijing, rather than backing its incumbents, has used Alibaba and Tencent to shake up its sluggish bankers.
这些中国挑战者在进军国内金融业时度过了一段轻松时期。中国的银行基本是国有巨头，其成立目的是依照日本模式，将低成本的居民储蓄输送到工业。即使到了现在，中国人都很少拥有信用卡和投资账户。许多中国人直接将他们的现金从床垫底下或活期账户转到支付宝和财付通(TenPay)。北京方面选择利用阿里巴巴和腾讯来震撼缺乏活力的银行，而不是支持现有金融企业，这也让行业新入者受益。
In developed markets, where consumers have long-ingrained habits of using credit and debit cards, as in the US, digital disrupters may have a harder time. Institutions such as First Data gave sighs of relief when, for example, Apple Pay worked with the traditional payments architecture rather than develop its own infrastructure.
在消费者使用信用卡和借记卡的习惯已根深蒂固的发达市场，如美国，数字颠覆者的日子可能更加艰难。例如，当看到Apple Pay与传统支付体系合作、而非自己开发支付基础设施时，First Data之类的机构松了一口气。
Today, more than ever the battle lines seem to be between new fintech players versus banks and other traditional financial institutions. Historically, the US’s Bank Holding Act made it difficult for a conglomerate to operate a bank, even though that is common practice in much of Asia. But since the 2008 crisis, banks have played a much reduced role, with much of the financial activity in the US moving elsewhere. That is partly because the regulatory requirements for banks are hard for many newcomers to meet, even if they wanted to. But it also means that non-banks such as Blackstone’s credit arm GSO, are playing a larger role.
如今，新金融科技公司与银行等传统金融机构之间的战线似乎比以往任何时候都要清晰。历史上，美国《银行控股公司法》(Bank Holding Company Act)使得一家企业集团难以经营一家银行，尽管这在亚洲很多地方是常见做法。但自2008年金融危机爆发以来，银行的作用大为下降，美国的大部分金融活动都转移至其他地方。这部分是因为，许多新来者都难以满足对于银行的监管要求，即使它们想要满足。但这也意味着，非银行机构——如黑石(Blackstone)旗下的信贷公司GSO——正在发挥更大的作用。
Some analysts believe it is only a matter of time before Amazon, Alibaba’s big competitor in global ecommerce, comes up with something comparable to Alipay. They also point to India, where Alibaba has a 40 per cent stake in the mobile wallet company Paytm, and veto power over its strategic direction.
一些分析师认为，阿里巴巴在全球电商领域的重要竞争对手——亚马逊(Amazon)推出类似支付宝的产品只是时间问题。他们还提到了印度，阿里巴巴在印度移动支付公司Paytm持有40%的股份，且对该公司的战略方向拥有否决权。
All this is part of a larger transformation in finance. We are in a time when blockchain technology holds out the potential for revolutionising the way financial trades are cleared and settled. If it succeeds, banks will also become less relevant in those parts of the financial system, to the advantage of the new digitally savvy operators. And change is only likely to accelerate in the year of the dog.
所有这些都是金融业大转型的一部分。我们正处于一个区块链技术有望给金融交易的清算和结算方式带来革命性变化的时代。如果成功，银行在金融体系的这些部分也将变得不那么重要，这将有利于新的精通数字技术的运营商。而这种转变在狗年只会加速。
