中國移動支付規模遠超美國

Chinese mobile payments were nearly 50 times greater than those in the US last year, market data show, highlighting Chinese internet companies’ strong position in a market segment viewed as a gateway to the fintech ecosystem.

市場數據顯示，去年，中國移動支付的規模是美國的近50倍。由此可見，在這個被視爲進入“金融科技”生態系統的一道門戶的市場，中國互聯網公司擁有強大的地位。

The rise of Chinese mobile payments has been driven by the explosive growth of online shopping as well as internet financial services such as peer-to-peer lending and online money market funds. More than half of all mutual funds in China are now sold online, up from only 5 per cent in 2012.

中國移動支付的流行，得益於在線購物以及網貸、在線貨幣市場基金等互聯網金融服務的爆炸性增長。如今中國超過一半的共同基金是在網上發售的，2012年這個比例僅爲5%。

Last year was also a turning point for the use of online payments at physical retailers, including supermarkets, restaurants and clothing shops. Starbucks announced in January that it would begin accepting WeChat Pay — the payments service linked to Tencent’s ubiquitous mobile messaging app — at its China stores. Growth was also robust in 2016 in online to offline services such as ride hailing and food delivery apps that customers pay for through via platforms.

去年也是超市、餐廳和服裝店等實體零售商使用在線支付的一個轉折年。1月，星巴克(Starbuck)宣佈其中國門店將開始接受微信支付(WeChat Pay)，這是騰訊(Tencent)被廣泛使用的移動消息應用“微信”所包含的支付服務。去年，線上到線下服務也增長強勁，如叫車和送餐應用，在這類服務中，消費者通過平臺支付。

“Digital payment platforms remain a critical part of the underlying fintech infrastructure in China but are also an important source of transaction and financial data that is increasingly being leveraged by the payment companies for new fintech platforms, products and services,” said Zennon Kapron, principal at Kapronasia, a Shanghai-based fintech consultancy.

總部位於上海的金融科技諮詢公司Kapronasia的負責人曾農?考普龍(Zennon Kapron)表示：“數字支付平臺仍然是中國金融科技基礎設施中的重要組成部分，也是交易和金融數據的一個重要來源，支付公司正越來越多地把這些數據用於新的金融科技平臺、產品和服務。”

The value of Chinese third-party mobile payments more than tripled to Rmb38tn ($5.5tn) in 2016, according to estimates by iResearch in China. WeChat Pay and Alipay, the payment service operated by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group, dominate the market. In the US, mobile payments rose 39 per cent to $112bn, according to global firm Forrester Research, with the market dispersed among rival groups including Apple, Google, Samsung and PayPal.

據中國艾瑞諮詢(iResearch)估計，2016年，中國第三方移動支付的規模擴大兩倍多，至38萬億元人民幣（合5.5萬億美元）。微信支付和支付寶(Alipay)在該市場佔據主導地位，後者是阿里巴巴集團(Alibaba Group)旗下螞蟻金服(Ant Financial)運營的支付服務。而根據全球研究機構Forrester Research的數據，美國移動支付規模增長39%，至1120億美元，蘋果(Apple)、谷歌(Google)、三星(Samsung)和PayPal等共同瓜分了市場。

China’s lead over the US in mobile payments is also the result of the lack of other viable options for non-cash payments. Credit card penetration in China is small compared to that of developed markets, while online payments with debit cards are cumbersome — usually requiring authentication through a combination of SMS messages, USB dongles and random code generators. By contrast, payment with Alipay or WeChat is much more streamlined and requires only the scan of a QR code from a retailer’s point-of-service terminal or a smartphone.

中國在移動支付方面領先於美國，也是缺乏其他可行的非現金支付方式的結果。與發達國家相比，中國的信用卡普及率較低，而用借記卡進行在線支付較爲繁瑣，通常需要通過短信、U盾和隨機密碼等多重認證。相比之下，用支付寶或微信進行支付要簡單得多，只需要從零售商服務點終端或智能手機掃描一下二維碼即可。

“China’s rapid adoption of proximity payments is in part thanks to its late-mover advantage — unlike the US and other regions, China does not have a strong entrenched credit card culture. In effect, China has jumped directly from cash to mobile payments,” market research firm eMarketer said in a report.

市場研究機構eMarketer在一份報告中稱：“近端支付在中國快速得到應用，一定程度上得益於其後發優勢——與美國和其他地區不同，中國沒有深厚的信用卡文化。實際上，中國直接從現金支付跳到了移動支付。”

Beyond the revenue earned directly from processing fees, the dominance of China’s mobile payments market by Alibaba’s Ant Financial and Tencent gives them access to valuable user data that can be used for everything from credit ratings to targeted advertising to product development.

除了直接賺取手續費收入，螞蟻金服與騰訊在中國移動支付市場佔據主導地位，也有利於它們獲取寶貴的用戶數據，這些數據可以用於很多方面，從信用評級到定向廣告以及產品開發。

However, the eye-catching transaction value of Chinese mobile payments partly reflects payments that do not necessarily correspond to real economic activity.

然而，中國移動支付市場引人注目的交易金額中，有一部分支付與實際經濟活動並不相關。

During the recent Spring Festival holiday for example, friends and relatives traded “red envelopes” in auspicious amounts such as 88, which pronounced in Mandarin sounds like “get rich”, and 520, which sounds like “I love you”.

例如，在剛剛過去的春節假期，親朋好友之間會互相發內含88（在普通話裏聽起來像“發財”）或520（聽起來像“我愛你”）等吉利數字的“紅包”。

While these red envelopes are used to make actual cash gifts, they are often exchanged back and forth as a form of socialising in which most users receive the same amount that they send. About 60 per cent of Chinese mobile payments took the form of person-to-person transfers in the third quarter, according to iResearch, although some portion of these are actually small businesses that have not set up a commercial payment account.

儘管這些紅包被用來發送實際的現金禮物，但是人們往往會互相發紅包作爲一種社交的方式，大多數人收到的紅包金額與他們所發出的紅包金額相當。艾瑞諮詢的數據顯示，在去年第三季度，中國移動支付金額中約有60%是以個人對個人(P2P)轉賬的形式，儘管其中一部分實際上來自未開立商業支付帳戶的小微企業。

“Originally this was just for holiday games, but after cultivation over several Spring Festivals, it’s now everyday behaviour,” said Li Zhefeng, payments analyst at iResearch in Beijing. “In the past, people used bank cards to do fund transfers, but now these transactions have shifted decisively to mobile phones.”

“最初這只是假期的特有遊戲，但在經過幾個春節後，如今這發展成了日常行爲，”艾瑞諮詢在北京的支付分析師李哲峯稱，“過去人們用銀行卡轉賬，但如今這些交易明顯都轉到手機端了。”

Yet in terms of mobile payment growth, China still resoundingly beats the US. Forrester expects US payments in 2019 to be 2.6 times their 2015 value; Chinese payments will grow by 7.4 times in the same period, according to iResearch.

不過在移動支付的增長方面，中國仍然完勝美國。Forrester預計，2019年美國移動支付總額將是2015年的2.6倍；而據艾瑞諮詢預計，同期中國的移動支付總額將增長7.4倍。

In the US, in-person payments at offline retailers rather than mobile payments will be the biggest growth driver in the US. There and in Europe, near field communication (NFC) payments, which involve swiping a phone over a chip reader, are preferred to QR codes.

在美國，在實體零售商進行的面對面支付（而非移動支付）將成爲最大的增長驅動因素。在美國和歐洲，近場通信(NFC)支付（把手機在芯片讀取器上刷一下）比二維碼更受歡迎。

Forrester found that half of all surveyed American retailers planned to install NFC terminals by the end of 2016 or had already done so. However, changing entrenched consumer behaviour is a challenge.

Forrester發現，2016年末，受訪的美國零售商中有一半計劃安裝、或已經安裝了NFC終端。然而，改變根深蒂固的消費者行爲是一項挑戰。

“Old habits die hard and, by all accounts, consumers are still reaching for cards rather than phones in the checkout lane,” Forrester wrote in its report.

“舊習慣很難改掉，根據各方面信息，消費者在結賬通道仍然習慣去掏卡而非拿出手機，”Forrester在報告中寫道。