中國向境外機構開放支付系統 或將推動支付寶與蘋果聯姻

The idea of an Alipay and Apple Pay partnership in China —suggested by Jack Ma this week—didn’t make a lot of sense when he said it.

上週，馬雲提出要讓支付寶（Alipay）和蘋果支付（Apple Pay）在中國合作，不過當時他的這個提議顯得並不合理。

Alipay is China’s most popular online payment system used for online purchases including Taobao orders, paying utility bills, movie tickets, and other shopping sites. It is not like Visa, Mastercard, or China’s own UnionPay, which have a network of tens of thousands of merchants and swipe stations. Walk around Beijing or Shanghai and you’ll see plenty of signs for UnionPay, the state-owned processor that enjoys a monopoly within China, and barely any for Alipay.

支付寶是中國當下最熱門的在線支付系統，人們用它支付淘寶（Taobao）上的訂單，繳納物業費，購買電影票，還可在其他購物網站上消費。然而，支付寶的地位與擁有數萬個商家和刷卡網絡的Visa、萬事達（Mastercard）或中國銀聯（UnionPay）不盡相同。漫步在北京或者上海的街頭，你會發現銀聯的標誌隨處可見——作爲國有支付處理機構，銀聯在中國具有壟斷地位——而支付寶的標誌卻寥寥無幾。

Apple’s new Apple Pay, meanwhile, is a mostly physical experience. You forgo the hassle of swiping a credit card at the cash register for the ease of touching the iPhone’s home button at two hundred thousand locations that have signed on with Apple. Yes, it has an online component that makes online shopping easier, but its allure is the physical component, just as Alipay’s allure is online.

與此同時，蘋果（Apple）的新產品——蘋果支付——更多的是一種實地體驗。你無需在結賬櫃檯刷卡，而只需在與蘋果簽約的20萬家門店內，輕鬆按下iPhone的home鍵就能完成付款。是的，蘋果手機上的在線組件讓在線購物變得更方便了，但它的關鍵還是物理組件，而支付寶的特色則是在線支付。

So when Ma brought up a partnership, it wasn’t clear what Alipay could offer Apple in China: it doesn’t have payment installations across the country and even where it did—in some stores it previously setup QR codes at cash registers that customers scanned with Alipay—UnionPay told Alipay to route them through UnionPay’s network.

所以當馬雲拋出橄欖枝時，我們並不清楚支付寶在中國能給蘋果帶來什麼：它在國內沒有支付設施，儘管曾經有過——支付寶曾在一些商家的收銀臺前提供二維碼，顧客可以掃描二維碼來付款，而銀聯隨後表示，支付寶必須通過銀聯網絡才能完成支付處理。

But Jack Ma doesn’t choose his words lightly. What he says carry weight even if it is difficult to understand. Just two days after he spoke on a stage with Tim Cook in the audience, China’s government announced a massive change to the payments system that supported Ma’s idea of a partnership.

但馬雲並不是輕率地開腔，這番話極有分量，即便你很難理解。就在馬雲在衆目睽睽下與蒂姆o庫克的對話剛過去兩天，中國政府就宣佈了將對支付政策做出巨大改變，馬雲的合作設想隨之得到有利支持。

Late Wednesday, China’s State Council, the Communist Party’s 35-member policy board led by Premier Li Keqiang, announced China would open its payment system to foreign companies like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, which it had long discriminated against. It might have well have added Alipay, which has also been disadvantaged. China has blocked foreigners for more than a decade from issuing their own cards and forced them to use UnionPay’s network, handing over a cut of the fees. During that time, UnionPay grew into a full-blown monopoly.

上週三，由李克強總理領導的中國國務院宣佈，中國將對Visa、萬事達和美國運通（American Express）等國外公司開放支付系統。一直處於弱勢地位的支付寶也有可能位列其中。十多年來，中國一直禁止這些公司發放自己的銀行卡，強迫他們使用銀聯網絡並繳納費用。在此期間，銀聯成長爲一家羽翼豐滿的壟斷巨頭。

Alipay has similarly faced off against UnionPay. Last August, Alipay abruptly said it shut down its offline point-of-sales service—the limited physical locations it had—for “obvious reasons” after UnionPay said Alipay’s transactions must be integrated into its network. It was a bold power grab, but one with state support.

支付寶在面對銀聯時遭遇了類似困境。去年8月，在銀聯表示支付寶的交易必須納入銀聯網絡後，支付寶突然宣佈，由於“明顯的原因”，將關閉線下銷售點的服務——儘管數量非常有限。

“Alipay decided to quit offline payments altogether because it does not want to subject itself to UnionPay’s control,” China’s business magazine Caixin quoted a source saying at the time.

中國商業媒體財新（Caixin）當時引用了一個消息源的說法：“支付寶決定徹底退出線下支付領域，因爲它不想受到銀聯的控制。”

Jack Ma stopped short of submitting to UnionPay’s rules when it came to online payments, however, because the stakes were too big. Alipay handled almost half the $900 billion online payments in China last year, according to iResearch.

在在線支付領域，馬雲並沒有受到銀聯的管控，因爲這塊蛋糕太大了。研究公司iResearch的數據顯示，去年中國在線支付的總額達到9,000億美元，其中幾乎一半都是通過支付寶完成的。

Jack Ma is known for staying a step or two ahead of the government without creating feuds. The way he sidestepped UnionPay’s monopoly in the mid-2000s by setting up Alipay’s online system with 200 banks is one example. Teaming up with Apple Pay looks like another. A partnership made little sense until China’s government announced it was opening up payments for everyone, which reduces UnionPay’s influence on the market and on Alipay. It remains to be seen how the rules will be implemented, but overnight UnionPay’s has less sway over Alipay.

馬雲著名之處，在於他總能快政府一到兩步，卻不會越線。其中一個例子是他在2004年創立了支付寶在線支付系統，並與200家銀行簽約，一舉打破了銀聯的壟斷。與蘋果支付的合作似乎會是另一個成功案例。這次合作起初意義不大，但隨着中國政府宣佈將放開支付領域的限制，因而減少了銀聯對市場和支付寶的影響力，情況就大不同了。這一規定究竟將如何實施仍有待觀察，但一夜之間，銀聯對支付寶的影響大大減少了。

Ma’s suggestion of an Apple Pay partnership, knowing a policy change would help it advance, looks prescient. An Alibaba spokeswoman declined comment.

馬雲似乎在官方發佈消息之前就已經知道政策即將變化，因此才提出了和蘋果支付合作的建議。阿里巴巴（Alibaba）的發言人拒絕對此發表評論。

Even though China’s government is intent on allowing foreigner card companies, and by extension Alipay, into the market, it will be years before any build scale to compete with UnionPay, which has tens of thousands of agreements with stores, restaurants, and shops.

即便中國政府有意讓外國銀行卡公司甚至支付寶都進入市場，但它們要成長到足以同銀聯競爭仍需要好幾年時間。後者已經與成千上萬家超市、餐廳和商鋪簽訂了合作協議。

Forrester vice president Bryan Wang in Beijing sees a potential Alipay agreement as a hedge. “The high-end iPhone 6 user wants to buy something at a department store, and they say, ‘Sorry we don’t accept Alipay—that’s probably not the experience Apple want to bring customers,” he says.

位於北京的弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）副總裁王平表示，支付寶要達成這一合作仍存在障礙。他表示：“高大上的iPhone 6用戶想要在百貨商場買點東西，結果店員說：‘對不起，我們不支持支付寶’——這可能不是蘋果想要帶給顧客的體驗。”

The first conversations Apple had about coming to China happened with UnionPay. But the negotiations have been slow to form. For now, Apple Pay is deactivated on iPhones sold in China. Caixin has reported that negotiations are still advancing.

就進入中國的問題，蘋果首先選擇與銀聯展開對話。但磋商的進展十分緩慢。到目前爲止，蘋果支付功能仍然未能在中國的iPhone上啓用。據財新報道，雙方仍在洽談。

It may be that the potential tie up between Jack Ma and Apple has little to do with China. “What Alibaba may be trying to do is…gain entry into the huge U.S. offline retail market and in return integrate Apple Pay into Alibaba’s online footprint from app stores to online retail stores in China,” says Neil Shah, who tracks the China mobile market for Counterpoint Research.

馬雲和蘋果公司的潛在合作可能與中國關係不大。Counterpoint Research公司的尼爾o沙哈負責研究中國的移動市場，他表示：“阿里巴巴想做的，可能是進入美國巨大的線下零售市場。作爲回報，阿里巴巴的在線產品將植入蘋果支付功能，藉此將其從蘋果應用商店帶入中國的在線零售商店。”

Apple doesn’t need Alipay and Alipay doesn’t need Apple. But at least now it’s clearer how they would work together.

蘋果並不是非得和支付寶合作不可，而支付寶也不是“非君不嫁”。但至少，雙方可能的合作方式現在變得更明晰了。