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Fintech comes to America at last
美國終于迎來金融科技
A digital-payments system that favours consumers,not banks and credit-card firms, is long overdue.
一個利于消費者而非銀行和信用卡公司的數字支付系統早就應該出現了
America is home to both Silicon Valley and Wall Street, yet it has long seemed in the dark ages on digital payments. Until 2018 card purchases required hand signatures, 15 years after Europe switched to chip-and-pin. A cosy credit-card duopoly, consisting of Visa and Mastercard, works with the banks to issue cards, with the result that there has been too little competition and sky-high profit margins. Asia has leapt ahead, with pervasive, fast and dirt-cheap payments services, and a new generation of dynamic fintech firms that have rapidly reached scale. Having outdated and expensive digital financial plumbing is no mere technicality: as online shopping becomes a bigger part of everyday spending, it threatens to become a heavy tax on innovation. And it means too few people, especially in poorer households, have access to cheap and simple financial tools.
美國是硅谷和華爾街的故鄉，但它似乎長期處于數字支付的黑暗時代。在2018年之前，在美國刷卡消費仍然需要手寫簽名，而歐洲在15年前就開始使用芯片卡付款系統了。作為信用卡領域的兩強壟斷集團，Visa和萬事達與銀行合作發行信用卡，他們的游刃有余卻造成市場缺乏競爭，利潤率成了天價。亞洲在數字支付已遙遙領先，實現了普遍、快速且廉價的支付方式，新一代充滿活力的金融科技公司已經迅速達到規模。過時且昂貴的數字金融體系不僅會帶來技術上的問題：隨著網購在日常開支中所占比重逐漸加大，它還有可能會給創新帶來重負。這意味著極少數人才能夠獲得廉價、簡單的金融工具，尤其是對貧困家庭而言。
The good news is that the picture in America is changing for the better. Thanks to the pandemic, there has been a surge in payments online and experimentation by consumers with new services provided by digital-payments firms. In the past quarter the volume of transactions on PayPal was 36% higher than a year earlier. The number of people using Square’s digital Cash App rose by 50% to 36m during 2020. Investors are now betting that these two firms, together with Stripe and Adyen (which is Dutch), form a quartet that can take on America’s stodgy financial establishment. (The chairman of The Economist’s parent group is a director of Square.) PayPal is worth $275bn, nearing Bank of America, the country’s second-biggest lender.
好消息是，美國的情況正在好轉。多虧了新冠疫情，在線支付以及消費者嘗試數字支付公司提供的新服務的次數均在激增。過去一個季度，PayPal的交易量比去年同期增長了36%。2020年，使用Square數字現金應用程序的人數增加了50%，達到3600萬。投資者們估計，這兩家公司連同Stripe和Adyen（荷蘭公司）打算四家聯手與美國古板的金融機構展開較量。（《經濟學人》母公司的董事長是Square的董事之一。）PayPal市值2750億美元，接近美國第二大銀行美國銀行的市值。
Yet there is a catch. Despite the rise of innovative firms, fees for American consumers have yet to fall by much. Square charges 2.6% on the average transaction; Stripe’s fee nears 3%. By contrast, China’s big fintech firms charge below 0.5%. Fees have been kept low by a fierce price war.
但有一個陷阱。盡管創新型公司不斷崛起，但美國消費者的手續費仍沒有大幅下降。Square在平均每筆交易中收取2.6%的手續費；Stripe的收費接近3%。相比之下，中國大型金融科技公司的收費低于0.5%。由于激烈的價格戰，中國收取的手續費一直很低。
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