The rise of third-party mobile payments in China at the expense of credit and debit cards is threatening commercial banks’ access to the customer data viewed as crucial to newly emerging financial and consumer business models.
在中国,第三方移动支付正在崛起,而代价是信用卡和借记卡的使用量在减少,这对商业银行获取客户数据的能力构成威胁。这些客户数据被视为新兴金融和消费业务模式的关键。
The president of Ant Financial, Alibaba Group’s finance affiliate, told the Financial Times earlier this month that payments through its Alipay unit bypass China UnionPay, the state-owned settlement network with close ties to the central bank.
本月早些时候,阿里巴巴集团(Alibaba Group)旗下金融公司蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)的总裁向英国《金融时报》表示,经由其支付宝(Alipay)完成的支付跳过了中国银联(China UnionPay)。银联是与中国央行关系密切的国有结算网络。
The result is that UnionPay, along with issuing banks and acquiring banks, is hemorrhaging income from merchant fees.
这种状况导致银联以及发卡行、收单行从商户那里赚取的手续费收入大幅缩水。
The trend is fuelled not only by the rise of ecommerce but also by the dramatic increase of mobile payments to offline merchants such as supermarkets and restaurants.
助长这一趋势的不仅仅是电子商务的崛起,还包括超市和餐馆等线下商户移动支付量的迅猛增长。
The move by more Chinese consumers to switch from swiping plastic cards to scanning QR codes with mobile wallet apps knocked $20bn from banks’ fee income in 2015, according to Kapronasia, a Shanghai-based fintech consultancy.
总部位于上海的金融科技咨询公司Kapronasia的数据显示,2015年有更多中国消费者从刷卡转向通过移动钱包应用扫描二维码,这令银行损失了200亿美元手续费收入。
Settlement fees are only part of banks’ overall revenue mix, which is dominated by interest income from loans.
在银行的总体营收组合中,占主导地位的是贷款的利息收入,结算手续费则只占一部分。
The bigger challenge to Chinese lenders, analysts say, comes from the way in which third-party payment providers are interposing themselves between banks and customers, depriving lenders of valuable data on consumption patterns.
不过分析师表示,中国的银行面临的更大挑战来自第三方支付提供商在银行与客户之间插一杠子的方式,这种方式令银行无法获得关于消费模式的宝贵数据。
Data are increasingly the new currency of choice in China as third-party payment providers move beyond payments to selling a wider range of products and services such as taxi-booking, movie tickets, and wealth management products, said Zennon Kapron, founder of Kapronasia.
Kapronasia创始人曾农•考普龙(Zennon Kapron)表示:随着第三方支付提供商超越支付业务、销售约车、电影票和理财产品等多种产品和服务,数据在中国正日益成为人们首选的新货币。
Banks are starved of the critical transaction data that would help them to provide competitive products and services.
银行急需会帮它们提供有竞争力的产品与服务的关键交易数据。
Most users of Alipay, and rival WeChat Pay owned by Tencent, fund their payments by linking their traditional bank accounts to mobile wallet apps.
支付宝及其竞争对手微信支付(WeChat Pay,隶属于腾讯(Tencent))的大多数用户,在支付时所用的钱都来自于与其移动钱包挂钩的传统银行账户。
That means traditional bank deposits are still the ultimate source of funds.
这意味着,传统银行存款仍是资金的最终来源。
But when a consumer uses Alipay or WeChat for payment, banks do not receive data on the merchant’s name and location.
然而,当消费者用支付宝或微信来支付时,银行不会接收到关于商户名称和所在地的数据。
Instead, the bank record simply shows the recipient as Alipay or WeChat.
银行的记录只会显示收款方是支付宝或微信。
The loss of data poses a challenge to Chinese banks at a time when their traditional lending business is under pressure from interest-rate deregulation, rising defaults, and the need to curb loan growth following the credit binge.
由于利率去监管化、违约增多以及信贷狂潮后需要抑制贷款增长,中国的银行的传统放贷业务正承受巨大压力。在这样一个时点,数据的流失为它们带来了一大挑战。
Big data is seen as vital to lenders’ ability to expand into new business lines.
对银行向新业务线拓展的能力来说,大数据被认为有着至关重要的意义。
In the past, commercial banks focused on servicing large enterprises and didn’t care much about consumers.
八六证券研究(86 Research)驻上海高级金融科技分析师王晓燕(音译)表示:过去,商业银行把主要精力放在服务大企业上,不太关注消费者。
But with the macro-economy suffering, the corporate business is facing pressure on margins on growth, said Wang Xiaoyan, senior fintech analyst at 86 Research in Shanghai.
然而,随着宏观经济遭遇麻烦,企业业务的增长空间面临压力。
Banks definitely want to capture the opportunity in retail banking, but if they don't have payment and consumption data, it’s difficult to gain consumer mindshare.
银行无疑希望抓住零售银行业务的机遇,但如果它们没有支付和消费数据,将很难引起消费者的更多关注。
In a sign that banks recognise the importance of data, China’s big four state-owned commercial lenders have each launched their own ecommerce platforms in recent years.
最近几年,中国四大国有商业银行都推出了自己的电商平台,这一迹象说明银行已认识到了数据的重要性。
Rong E-Gou, the platform run by Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the country’s largest lender by assets, has 30m users and reported turnover of Rmb870bn last year.
去年,中国资产最多的中国工商银行(ICBC)运营的平台融e购拥有3000万用户,交易额达8700亿元人民币。