螞蟻金服贏得FT金融科技“影響力”獎
A big Chinese group and a US not-for-profit have triumphed in the second annual Financial Times fintech awards, with Ant Financial taking the “impact” prize and QCash winning for “innovation”.
中國一家大型集團和美國一家非營利機構贏得了第二屆英國《金融時報》年度金融科技獎，螞蟻金服(Ant financial)拿下了“影響力”獎，而QCash贏得了“創新”獎。Ant Financial is the 800-pound gorilla of the fintech world. With a dominant share of more than half of China’s fast-growing $5.5tn mobile payments market, this spin-off from the Alibaba ecommerce group has raised more funding than any rival and is valued at over $70bn — more than most banks.
螞蟻金服是金融科技界的巨無霸。憑藉着在中國快速增長的總值5.5萬億美元的移動支付市場上佔據着一半以上的主導性份額，這家從電商集團阿里巴巴(Alibaba)分拆出來的公司籌集的資金超過所有競爭對手，目前估值逾700億美元——超過多數銀行。Launched in 2004 as a PayPal-type service to facilitate payment on Alibaba’s ecommerce platforms, Ant Financial had 450m annual active users at the end of April 2016 — 10 times more than even the biggest lenders — and it has continued to double its user base in the past year.
螞蟻金服於2004年作爲阿里巴巴電商平臺上與PayPal類似的支付服務創辦，到2016年4月它擁有4.5億年活躍用戶——甚至比大型銀行的客戶還多10倍——而過去一年螞蟻金服的用戶基數又增長了一倍。
As well as providing consumers with a smooth way to pay for all kinds of goods and services through its Alipay service, Ant Financial operates Yu’E Bao, the world’s largest money-market fund, and Sesame Credit, the consumer credit scoring system.
除了通過其支付寶(Alipay)服務爲消費者提供購買各種商品和服務的快捷支付方式外，螞蟻金服還經營着世界上最大的貨幣市場基金“餘額寶”，以及消費者信用評分系統“芝麻信用”(Sesame Credit)。Ant has sewn up deals across Asia, including India, Thailand and South Korea. Further afield it has signed agreements with dozens of banks and payments companies to give its customers the ability to pay for goods in many US and European stores using its app.
螞蟻金服在亞洲各國敲定交易，其中包括印度、泰國和韓國。在其他地區，螞蟻金服與數十家銀行和支付公司簽訂了協議，讓其顧客可以使用其App在美國和歐洲很多商店購買商品。Its sheer size and rapid growth causes western bank bosses to worry whether it will soon seek to compete for US and European clients. “Alipay is the biggest payments company in China but they are going to move out of there and we have to be ready for that,” John McFarlane, chairman of Barclays, said this week.
螞蟻金服的龐大規模及其迅速增長，引發西方銀行的老闆們擔心它是否會很快試圖爭取美國和歐洲客戶。“支付寶是中國最大的支付公司，但他們將走出中國，我們必須做好準備，”巴克萊銀行(Barclays)董事長約翰?麥克法倫(John McFarlane)本週表示。
However, Ant’s international expansion has hit one hurdle after its sweetened bid for MoneyGram came under attack from US lawmakers and rival bidder Euronet even after it was backed by most shareholders in the US remittances group.
然而，在螞蟻金服加價收購速匯金(MoneyGram)的舉動遭到美國議員和競購對手Euronet的攻擊後——儘管它已經得到了這家美國匯款集團大多數股東的支持——其海外擴張的步伐遇到了障礙。The awards were announced at the FT Banking Summit at London’s Guildhall on Thursday afternoon. There were more than 200 entries, which were whittled down to a shortlist of 10 by a panel of judges.
週四下午，在倫敦金融城市政廳(Guildhall)舉行的英國《金融時報》銀行業峯會宣佈了獎項。參選企業超過200家，評委小組從中篩選出包含10家企業的入圍名單。
