世界窮人獲益於移動支付平臺

Campaigners have for years been battling to get the world’s poor better access to banking, arguing that something as simple as setting up a bank account and, better yet, providing credit can be the most effective tools to help people rise out of poverty.

多年來，活動家們一直在爲了讓世界上的窮人更好地獲得銀行服務而努力。他們指出，像開設銀行賬戶、以及進一步提供信貸這樣簡單的事，可以成爲幫助人們擺脫貧困的最有效工具。

But thanks to a rare confluence of technological innovations and new pushes in countries such as India, those efforts to encourage what the professionals call “financial inclusion” might finally be paying off.

現在，技術創新和印度等國國內的新推動力正難得地發生融合，得益於此，鼓勵這種專業人士所稱的“金融包容性”的努力可能終於要成功了。

In a report looking at both the progress made and the government policies being adopted around the developing world, researchers at the Brookings Institution in Washington argue that after years of work that may just be the case.

在一份考察“金融包容性”進展以及發展中國家政府所採納的政策的報告中，華盛頓布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institution)的研究員認爲，在經過多年的努力之後，情況可能確實如此。

“Financial inclusion is really taking off,” says Darrell West, director of the centre for technological innovation at Brookings and one of the authors. “I think we have reached a tipping point.”

“金融包容性真的在實現，”布魯金斯學會科技創新中心主任、該報告作者之一達雷爾韋斯特(Darrell West)稱，“我想我們已經達到了一個臨界點。”

The study is not the first to identify progress. In April, for example, the World Bank released the results of a 140-country survey that found more than 700m people worldwide had left the ranks of the “unbanked” in the past three years.

該研究並非是第一個確認該進展的。例如，今年4月世界銀行(World Bank)公佈的對140個國家所做調查的結果顯示，過去3年中，世界各地有超過7億人脫離了“無銀行賬戶者”之列。

The main credit for that progress goes to mobile phone-based payment platforms such as Kenya’s M-Pesa, which have provided a way around often traditional bank bureaucracies and regulatory regimes in many developing economies.

該進展主要歸功於肯尼亞M-Pesa之類的手機支付平臺，它們提供了一條途徑，可以繞開很多發展中國家通常情況下傳統銀行的繁文縟節和監管機制。

Their widespread use in some African countries has put the continent at the forefront of efforts to secure banking services for the poor. Kenya topped the rankings of the 21 countries Brookings researchers examined, with 75 per cent of adults now holding financial accounts of some sort, a 33 percentage point increase from 2011.

它們在一些非洲國家的廣泛使用，使非洲處於幫窮人獲得銀行服務的努力的前沿。在布魯金斯學會研究員考察的21個國家中，肯尼亞位列榜首，如今75%的成年人擁有某種金融賬戶，較2011年增長了33個百分點。

Among the things encouraging researchers is the fact that after years of being a largely African phenomenon, mobile phone-driven services are being launched in other regions where governments are also loosening historical regulatory constraints on non-bank financial service companies.

令研究員感到鼓舞的是，過去多年主要屬於非洲現象的手機金融服務，如今正在其他地區展開，而這些地區的政府也在放鬆歷史上針對非銀行金融服務機構的監管約束。

In an increasing number of places governments are working with the banking industry and telecoms companies to establish a mobile payment system aimed at those without bank accounts — in Peru 70 per cent of its 22m adults, said the World Bank.

世界銀行稱，在越來越多的地區，政府正在與銀行業和電信公司合作，面向那些沒有銀行賬戶的人——在祕魯，2200萬成年人中70%的人屬於這類人——建立移動支付系統。