为尊重原文，本文添加了原文与翻译文的对照查看和必要的注释文字。
Ant's Jumbo IPO
蚂蚁集团超大型IPO
导读：
本文主要讲述蚂蚁集团的来龙去脉。蚂蚁集团是如何起家的?蚂蚁是什么?蚂蚁的本质是什么?它对金融体系有什么影响?蚂蚁集团的规模有多大?它跟传统金融有什么区别和优势?蚂蚁给我们的日常生活带来什么便利和影响?蚂蚁的支付、信贷、资产管理和保险等业务是如何发展的?在发展过程中遇到什么问题?蚂蚁最大的创新是什么?蚂蚁对中小企业有什么影响?蚂蚁的发展存在哪三个风险?政府对蚂蚁的态度如何?蚂蚁有哪些竞争对手?他们之间有什么区别?蚂蚁跟全球金融有什么共鸣?蚂蚁的无抵押贷款的拖欠贷款率为什么会比传统银行低?蚂蚁跟银行的关系如何?蚂蚁的海外发展战略如何?未来如何?
格式说明：
- 英文原文
- 中文翻译
- 单词词组
- 单词词组解释
- 译注及说明
译注：这张原文配图乍一看比较枯燥，结合文章内容我才稍微体会到这张配图不简单，本文主要讲蚂蚁集团，图中像是一群蚂蚁，类比蚂蚁集团的不同业务、众多小微企业客户和个人用户等，而且这些蚂蚁有序往前爬行，表示蚂蚁旗下不同业务的发展。什么?没看到蚂蚁?只看到人民币符号“¥”?嗯，可能是这些蚂蚁搬运的人民币太多把蚂蚁遮盖住了，表示蚂蚁集团的每个业务都很赚钱，整个蚂蚁生态有超强的吸金能力。但毕竟细细品味才能理解一点这张图的意思，为了更加直观，个人在前面添加了一张亮丽一点的蚂蚁集团配图。
Queen of the colony
蚁群王后
colony
- a country or an area that is governed by people from another, more powerful, country殖民地(biology生物) a group of plants or animals that live together or grow in the same place(同地生长的植物或动物)群体，集落，群。例：a colony of ants蚁群。
译注：双关语标题。初看这个标题，colony有“殖民地”的意思，标题可译为“殖民女王”或“殖民王后”，原文作者也许是想表达蚂蚁集团类比英国强盛殖民时期女王。不过这个用词有点激进，怕与天朝和谐社会气氛不合，一度想删掉这个副标题。不过colony还有另外一个意思动物“群体”，这里把蚂蚁集团类比为蚁群。“蚁群王后”中的“王后”首先表示蚂蚁集团是众多企业的榜样。另外，在白蚁的王国中，一个蚁巢里只有一只母蚁，又叫蚁后。蚁后的体形是最大的，而且通常情况下不露面，它只负责不停地生出新的卵来繁衍后代，在本文中类比蚂蚁集团不停地产生新的业务和发展更多的企业和个人客户，具有超强的业务繁衍能力。
Does the giant Chinese fintech upstart represent the future of finance?
中国庞大的金融科技新贵是否代表了金融的未来?
upstart
- a newly successful person, business, etc.新贵;新兴事业
In the staid world of Chinese banking, it is rare for executives to voice public criticism. So Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, made headlines in 2008 when he bemoaned how hard it was for small businesses to get loans: “If the banks don’t change, we’ll change the banks.” He has not repeated his warning since then. He has not needed to.
在中国沉寂的银行业中，高管很少会公开表达意见。因此，电子商务巨头阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的创始人马云(Jack Ma)在2008年成为头条新闻，当时他哀叹小企业获得贷款有多难：“如果银行不改变，我们就改变银行。” 之后他再也没有说过同样的警示。他不需要了。
staid
- not fun or interesting; boring and old-fashioned没意思的;古板的;一本正经的
bemoan something
- to complain or say that you are not happy about something哀怨;悲叹
Through Ant Group, which began life as a payments service on Alibaba, Mr Ma’s impact on the Chinese financial system has been profound. Ant has helped establish China as the world leader in digital transactions, given entrepreneurs and consumers far greater access to loans, and changed the way that people manage their money. It is now a giant in its own right. Over the past year it counted more than 1bn active users. Last year it handled 110trn yuan ($16trn) in payments, nearly 25 times more than PayPal, the biggest online payments platform outside China (see chart 1 on next page).
凭借阿里巴巴支付服务起家的蚂蚁集团，马云对中国金融体系的影响深远。蚂蚁集团帮助中国在数字交易领域确立了全球领导地位，给了企业家和消费者更多的贷款机会，同时也改变了人们管理资金的方式。现在它本身就是一个巨人。在过去的一年中，它的活跃用户超过10亿。去年，它处理了110万亿元人民币(合16万亿美元)的支付，几乎是中国以外最大的在线支付平台PayPal的25倍(见图表1)。
access
- the opportunity or right to use something or to see somebody/something(使用或见到的)机会，权利
in its own right
- because of its own special qualities and not because of a connection with something else
An initial public offering (IPO) in the coming weeks will bear testimony to Ant’s growth. It is expected to raise more than $30bn, eclipsing Saudi Aramco’s debut last year as the biggest IPO—a symbol of the world’s transition from a century in which oil was the most valuable resource to an era that prizes data. With a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 40, in line with big global payments companies, Ant could fetch a market capitalisation in excess of $300bn, more than any bank in the world.
未来几周的首次公开募股(IPO)将证明蚂蚁的成长。预计它将筹集超过300亿美元，超过沙特阿美(Saudi Aramco)去年的全球最大的首次公开募股(IPO)，标志着世界从一个石油是最有价值的资源的世纪到重视数据的时代的转变。早先40倍的市盈率，加上大型全球支付公司，蚂蚁的市值可能超过3000亿美元，超过世界上任何一家银行。
prize
- to value something highly珍视;高度重视
in line with something
- similar to something or so that one thing is closely connected with another与…相似(或紧密相连)
A four-legged insect
四足昆虫
More important than its size is what Ant represents. It matters globally in a way that no other Chinese financial institution does. China’s banks are huge but inefficient, burdened by state ownership. By contrast foreign financiers look at Ant with curiosity, envy and anxiety. Some hawks in the White House reportedly want to rein in the company or hobble its IPO. Ant is the most integrated fintech platform in the world: think of it as a combination of Apple Pay for offline pay, PayPal for online pay, Venmo for transfers, Mastercard for credit cards, JPMorgan Chase for consumer financing and iShares for investing, with an insurance brokerage thrown in for good measure, all in one mobile app.
比其体量更重要的是蚂蚁所代表的含义。它在全球的重要性是其他任何中国金融机构无法比拟的。中国的银行规模庞大，但效率低下，并有国营的负担。相比之下，外国金融家对蚂蚁充满好奇、嫉妒和焦虑。据报道，白宫的一些鹰派人士想控制该公司或阻碍其IPO。蚂蚁是世界上集成度最高的金融科技平台。可以将其视为以下这些工具的组合：Apple Pay(用于线下支付)、PayPal(用于线上支付)、Venmo(用于转账)、Mastercard(用于信用卡)、JPMorgan Chase(用于消费者融资)和iShares(用于投资)。保险经纪人可以在一个移动应用程序中充分发挥作用。
rein somebody/something↔back | rein something↔in
- to start to control somebody/something more strictly严格控制;加强管理
for good measure
- as an extra amount of something in addition to what has already been done or given作为额外增添;外加的项目
Given the abundance of consumer data in China and the relatively lax safeguards around its use, Ant has more to work with than fintech peers elsewhere. More than 3,000 variables have gone into its credit-risk models, and its automated systems decide whether to grant loans within three minutes—a claim that may seem farfetched but for Alibaba’s proven ability to handle 544,000 orders per second. Ant is, in short, the world’s purest example of the tremendous potential of digital finance. But as it advances further, it may also be an early warning of its limitations.
鉴于中国大量的消费者数据以及相对宽松的使用这些数据的保障措施，与其他地方的金融科技同行相比，蚂蚁集团有更多的合作余地。包含3000多个变量的信用风险模型，自动化系统可以在三分钟内决定是否发放贷款，这些听起来有点不可思议，但现在阿里巴巴已每秒可以处理54.4万份订单。简而言之，蚂蚁是全球数字金融巨大潜力的最纯粹的例子。但是随着它的进一步发展，它同时也可能预示着一些局限性。
Start with a deceptively simple question: what is Ant? In its decade as an independent company it has changed names three times—from Alibaba E-Commerce to Ant Small and Micro Financial Services to Ant Group. The company once called itself a fintech leader. Then Mr Ma inverted the term to techfin, in order better to capture its priorities. Such are its efforts to distinguish itself from a purely financial firm that it has asked some brokerages to assign tech analysts to cover it. (Of course, it does not hurt that the valuations for tech stocks are much plumper than for bank stocks.)
从一个看似简单的问题开始：什么是蚂蚁?在作为独立公司的十年中，它已经三度更名，从阿里巴巴电子商务到蚂蚁小微金融服务再到蚂蚁集团。该公司曾经自称为“金融科技”领导者。然而，马云将其反过来称为“科技金融”，以便更好地把握其优先事项。为了将其与纯粹的金融公司区分开来，蚂蚁要求一些经纪公司指派技术分析师来为其提供服务。(当然这并不影响科技类股票的估值远高于银行类股票的估值。)
plump
- having a soft, round body; slightly fat丰腴的;微胖的
Yet there is no doubt that Ant, at its heart, is about finance. The clearest way of understanding its business model is to look at the four sections into which it divides its revenues. The first is payments—how it started and still the foundation of the company. Ant began in 2004 as a solution to a problem. Shoppers and merchants were flocking to Alibaba but lacked a trusted payment option. Alipay was created as an escrow account, transferring money to sellers after buyers had received their products. With the launch of a mobile Alipay app, it moved into the offline world, super-charging its growth in 2011 with the introduction of QR codes for payments. A shop owner needed to show only a QR code print-out to accept money, a big advance for a country previously reliant on cash.
但是，毫无疑问，蚂蚁的核心是金融。理解其业务模型的最好的方法是了解其营收的四大部分。首先是支付，蚂蚁从支付起家，现在依然是公司的基础。蚂蚁从2004年解决一个问题开始。顾客和商家涌向阿里巴巴，但缺乏可信赖的支付方式。作为第三方托管帐户的支付宝应运而生，在买家收到商品后将钱转账给卖家。随着移动支付宝应用程序的发布，它进入了线下世界，2011年引入了二维码支付，从而为其增长提供了动力。商店老板只需出示一张打印的二维码即可收款，这对以前依赖现金的方式来说是一大进步。
escrow
- money , property , or a legal document that is kept by someone until a particular thing has happened 暂交第三者保管的东西(如钱、财产、法律文件等)
For China as a whole, digital transactions reached 201trn yuan in 2019, up from less than 1trn in 2010. Alipay’s market share has been whittled down by Tencent, which added a payments function to WeChat, China’s dominant messaging app. Both companies earn as little as 0.1% per transaction, less than banks do from debit-card swipes. Given the sheer volume, this still adds up to a lot. Ant generated nearly 52bn yuan of revenues from its payments business last year. But growth is slowing, dropping from 55% of Ant’s revenue in 2017 to 36% in the first half of this year. Instead, the crucial point is that payments are a gateway: how Ant attracts users, understands them and ultimately monitors them.
中国数字交易额从2010年的不到1万亿人民币增加到2019年的201万亿人民币。支付宝的市场份额被腾讯削减了，腾讯给微信添加了支付功能。两家公司的每笔交易收益仅为0.1%，低于银行从借记卡刷卡中获得的收益。考虑到庞大的体量，这仍然很多。去年，蚂蚁的支付业务创造了近520亿元的收入。但增长速度正在放缓，从2017年蚂蚁收入的55%下降到今年上半年的36%。然而关键点在于支付是入口：蚂蚁如何吸引用户、理解用户并最终跟踪用户。
whittle something ↔ down
- to reduce the size or number of something减少，缩减(…的大小或数目)
The biggest beneficiary of all this data is Ant’s lending arm, the second part of the company (which Ant, never one to shy away from jargon, calls CreditTech). Ant began consumer lending as recently as 2014, with the launch of Huabei, a revolving unsecured credit line for purchases— basically a virtual credit card. Alipay users can tap into Huabei to defer payments by a month or to break them into instalments. Credit cards had never taken off in China, so Huabei was lapped up. That led to Jiebei, an Alipay feature which allows users to borrow larger sums. Ant also offers loans, with a focus on very small businesses. Annualised interest rates hover between 7% and 14%, lower than the alternatives from small-loan companies.
所有这些数据中最大的受益者是蚂蚁的借贷部门，这是公司的第二部分(蚂蚁称为CreditTech)。蚂蚁于2014年开始提供消费者贷款，推出了花呗，这是一种无抵押、循环消费信贷产品，也可以说是一种虚拟信用卡。支付宝用户可以点进花呗，将付款推迟一个月或分期付款。当时信用卡还未普及，所以花呗大显身手。后来有了借呗，它是支付宝的一个功能，它允许用户借入更大的金额。蚂蚁还提供贷款，主要给非常小的企业。年利率在7%至14%之间徘徊，低于小额贷款公司的替代利率。
unsecured
- not protected against risk or loss : not secure无担保的;无保证的;无抵押的
take off
- (of an idea, a product, etc.观念、产品等) to become successful or popular very quickly or suddenly突然大受欢迎;迅速流行
lap up
- to drink all of something and to enjoy doing so开怀畅饮
Like many Ant clients, Zhu Yifan, owner of Rabbits Go Home, a convenience store in Dongyang, an eastern city, started small. Four years ago she and her husband wanted to open their store. With no property as collateral, they could not get a bank loan. Instead, they pulled together money from friends and relatives, and, on a whim, borrowed 10,000 yuan from Ant, the most they could obtain then. By repaying that initial loan and getting customers to use Alipay— giving Ant a look at her cash flow—Ms Zhu’s credit score improved. Now, she has a 100,000 yuan credit line from Ant, which lets her stock up before busy holidays.
像许多蚂蚁客户一样，浙江东阳的“兔子回家”便利店老板朱一帆起步规模小。四年前，她和丈夫想开店。没有财产作为抵押，他们无法获得银行贷款。取而代之的是，他们从亲戚朋友那里筹集了资金，一时兴起，向蚂蚁借了1万元，这是当时他们所能获得的最大额度。通过偿还最初的贷款并让客户使用支付宝(让蚂蚁了解其现金流)，朱女士的信用评分提高了。现在，她从蚂蚁那里获得了10万元的信用额度，这使她可以在繁忙的假期到来之前囤积货物。
collateral
- property or something valuable that you promise to give to somebody if you cannot pay back money that you borrow抵押物;担保品
whim
- a sudden wish to do or have something, especially when it is something unusual or unnecessary心血来潮;一时的兴致;突发的奇想
credit line = lines of credit
- an amount of money that a person is allowed to borrow信用额度
In barely half a decade Ant has reached 1.7trn yuan in outstanding consumer loans, or roughly a 15% share of China’s consumer-lending market. Its loans to small businesses total about 400bn yuan, about 5% of the micro-enterprise loan market. From a financial perspective, Ant’s biggest innovation is the way that it funds the credit. Initially, it made the loans and then packaged them as securities, sold to other financial institutions. But regulators feared parallels with the securitisation boom that preceded the financial crisis of 2007-09. They required that the originators of securities hold capital much like any bank—a rule that cut into Ant’s margins.
在不到五年的时间里，蚂蚁的未偿还消费贷款达到1.7万亿元，约占中国消费贷款市场的15%。给小企业的贷款总额约为4000亿元，约占微型企业贷款市场的5%。从金融角度来看，蚂蚁最大的创新就是它为信贷提供资金的方式。最初，它提供贷款，然后打包为证券，出售给其他金融机构。但监管机构担心这与2007-2009年金融危机爆发之前的证券繁荣类似。要求证券的发起人要像任何一家银行一样持有资本，这就削减了蚂蚁的利润。
outstanding
- (of payment, work, problems, etc.款项、工作、困难等) not yet paid, done, solved, etc.未支付的;未完成的;未解决的
parallel
- very similar or taking place at the same time极相似的;同时发生的;相应的;对应的
So Ant devised a new approach. It now identifies and assesses borrowers, but passes them on to banks which extend the loans. Ant collects a “technology service fee”. For borrowers it is seamless. With a few taps on their smartphones, their credit requests are approved or rejected. Ant ends up with a cash-rich, asset-light lending model. Fully 98% of the loans are held as assets by other firms. Credit has become Ant’s biggest single business segment, accounting for 39% of its revenues in the first half of this year (see chart 2 on next page).
因此，蚂蚁设计了一种新方法。现在，它可以识别和评估借款人并将其转给银行，让银行来发放贷款。蚂蚁收取“技术服务费”。这个过程对于借款人而言是无感知的。在智能手机上轻点几下，即可批准或拒绝其信贷请求。蚂蚁最终得到了一个重资金、轻资产的贷款模型。足足98%的贷款被其他公司作为资产持有。信贷已成为蚂蚁最大的独立业务板块，占今年上半年收入的39%(见表2)。
extend
- (formal) to offer or give something to somebody提供;给予
fully
- (formal) (used to emphasize an amount强调数量) the whole of; as much as整整;足足
The strength of Ant’s platform is what enables its third and fourth business segments: asset management and insurance (InvestmentTech and InsureTech, to use Ant’s nomenclature). Ant got started on asset management in 2013 with the launch of Yu’ebao, or “leftover treasure”. The idea was that merchants or shoppers with cash in Alipay could get a small return by parking it in a money-market fund. That attracted people interested in Yu’ebao purely for storing cash, since its yields (now roughly 1.7%) were higher than those available on current accounts at banks. By 2017 Yu’ebao had given rise to the world’s biggest money-market fund by size.
蚂蚁的平台优势造就了其第三和第四个业务部分：资产管理和保险(使用蚂蚁的术语叫InvestmentTech和InsureTech)。随着“余额宝”的推出，蚂蚁于2013年开始资产管理。这个想法是，商家或顾客可以将支付宝中的现金存入货币市场基金以获得少量回报。这激起了纯粹为了存钱的人对余额宝的兴趣，因为它的收益率(现在约为1.7%)高于银行活期账户的收益率。截至2017年，余额宝催生了全球最大的货币市场基金。
strength
- a quality or an ability that a person or thing has that gives them an advantage优势;优点;长处
nomenclature
- a system of naming things, especially in a branch of science(尤指某学科的)命名(法)
give ˈrise to sth
- (formal) to cause sth to happen or exist 使发生(或存在)
Ant broadened its offerings to become one of China’s most powerful distribution channels for investments. Today 170 companies sell more than 6,000 products such as stock and bond funds on Ant. Altogether these firms have roughly 4.1trn yuan in assets under management enabled by the app. As with its lending business, Ant screens prospective clients and directs them to products. It then collects a service fee. “Our growth on Ant has been faster than on any other digital platform,” says Li Li, deputy CEO of Invesco Great Wall Fund Management. Her group’s two money-market funds soared from 665m yuan in assets under management in early 2018, when it started selling them on Ant, to 114bn yuan in June.
蚂蚁扩大了产品范围，使其成为中国最强大的投资分销渠道之一。如今，有170家公司在蚂蚁上销售股票和债券基金等6000多种产品。这些公司用余额宝app管理着约4.1万亿元的资产。与贷款业务一样，蚂蚁会筛选潜在客户并将其定向到产品。然后它收取服务费。景顺长城基金管理公司副总裁李黎说：“我们在蚂蚁上的增长比在任何其他数字平台上的增长都要快”。她公司旗下两只货币市场基金从2018年初在蚂蚁上开始售卖时的6.65亿元人民币激增至6月份的1140亿元人民币。
offering
- something that is produced for other people to use, watch, enjoy, etc.用品;剧作;作品;供消遣的产品
Ant’s push into insurance happened more recently. For a decade it offered shipping insurance for purchases on Alibaba, letting dissatisfied customers return goods for no charge. But it is only in the past two years that it has applied its asset-management template to insurance. In partnership with big insurance firms, it has unveiled life, car and medical insurance—again collecting fees as a distribution platform. Asset management and insurance now make up nearly a quarter of revenues.
蚂蚁保险是最近才开始的。十年来，它为在阿里巴巴购物提供了运输保险，让不满意的客户免费退货。但是直到最近两年，它才将其资产管理模板应用于保险。与大型保险公司合作，它推出了人寿、汽车和医疗保险——再次收取分销平台费。资产管理和保险现在占收入的近四分之一。
All the ants are marching
所有的蚂蚁都在前行
译注：蚂蚁集团Ant Group下的每个业务部分和客户都比作一只蚂蚁，每个业务都在发展，好比每个蚂蚁都在前行
Simply looking at the numbers, Ant can appear unstoppable. It has chalked up dizzying growth rates in every market that it has targeted. It benefits from the network effects so familiar in the tech world: the more people use it, the stronger its attraction for yet more borrowers, lenders and investors. It is a virtuous cycle, especially for Ant’s shareholders. Nevertheless, there exist three kinds of risks that could slow it down: regulatory, competitive and those that are intrinsic to its own model.
单从数字上看，蚂蚁看起来势不可挡。在每一个目标市场都有令人眼花缭乱的增长率。这得益于科技界熟悉的网络效应：使用的人越多，它对更多借方、贷方和投资方就有更大的吸引力。这是一个良性循环，特别是对于蚂蚁的股东而言。尽管如此，仍然存在三种可能放缓其发展的风险：监管风险、竞争风险和自身模型固有的风险。
chalk up something
- to achieve or record a success, points in a game, etc.获得，取得(成功);记下，记录(成就、比赛得分等)
dizzying
- making you feel dizzy使人眩晕的;使人头昏眼花的
virtuous circle
- a series of events in which each one seems to increase the good effects of the previous one良性循环
The regulatory landscape in China is treacherous. Officials endlessly tweak rules for banks and investors, patching up holes as they emerge in the fast-growing but debt-laden economy. Many have long assumed that the government will give Ant, a private-sector firm, only so much leeway in the state-controlled system.
中国的监管环境有潜在风险。官员们不断地为银行和投资者调整规则，在快速增长但负债累累的经济发展中修补漏洞。长期以来，许多人一直认为政府能给予私营企业蚂蚁集团的也就这么多活动余地了。
treacherous
- dangerous, especially when seeming safe有潜在危险的
tweak something
- to make slight changes to a machine, system, etc. to improve it稍稍调整(机器、系统等)
patch something/somebody ↔ up (rather informal)
- to repair something, especially in a temporary way by adding a new piece of material or a patch修理;(尤指)临时修补
leeway
- the amount of freedom that you have to change something or to do something in the way you want to自由活动的空间
Indeed, regulators have already put numerous hurdles in Ant’s path. Its first attempt at launching a virtual credit card was blocked. The securitisation crackdown upended its lending model. A government plan to standardise QR codes could weaken it in payments, potentially reducing Ant’s market dominance. Another new rule, taking effect in November, will force Ant to hold more capital.
实际上，监管机构已经在蚂蚁的道路上设置了许多障碍。它首次启动虚拟信用卡的尝试被阻止。对证券化的严厉打击改变了其贷款模式。政府制定的二维码标准化计划可能会削弱其支付功能，从而有可能降低蚂蚁的市场主导地位。另一项将于11月生效的新规定将迫使蚂蚁持有更多资本。
But if all these hurdles were meant to stop Ant, they have not succeeded. So there exists an alternative explanation. Regulators, wary of the pitfalls in financial innovation, continue to erect guardrails around Ant. In general, though, they like it. Not only has it steered credit towards small consumers and businesses, it has also given the government more information about money flows. Duncan Clark, author of a biography of Jack Ma, notes that regulators have long struggled to monitor all corners of China, referencing the old saying that the mountains are high and the emperor far away. “Ant has basically let Beijing tunnel through the mountains and fly drones over their summits,” he says.
但是，如果所有这些障碍都是为了阻止蚂蚁，那么它们是不成功的。因此，存在另一种解释。监管机构对金融创新的隐患保持警惕，持续在蚂蚁周围架设护栏。总的来说，他们喜欢它。它不仅为小额消费者和企业提供信贷，还向政府提供了有关资金流动的更多信息。杰克·马(Jack Ma)传记的作者邓肯·克拉克(Duncan Clark)指出，监管机构长期以来一直在努力关注中国的各个角落，并引用了一句古话：山高皇帝远。他说：“蚂蚁基本上已经让政府穿越了山脉，并在山顶飞过无人机。”
guardrail
- a strong metal bar along the side of a road that prevents vehicles from driving off the road(道路的)防撞护栏
monitor
- to watch, observe, listen to, or check (something) for a special purpose over a period of time监视;监听;关注
译注1：马云传记原名：《Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built》，中文名《阿里巴巴—马云和他的102年的梦想》
译注2：这里将“监视”译作“关注”，缓和气氛
译注3：在纸币时代，可以说山高皇帝远，但在支付宝普及的信息社会，政府可以触及每一个人的每一个细节。好比穿山打洞飞无人机，再没有山高皇帝远了。
Another threat to Ant is its competitors. Until 2013 mobile pay was, more or less, Ant’s exclusive domain. But Tencent has used its ubiquitous WeChat app to muscle in, taking nearly a 40% market share. Other firms also have financial ambitions. Meituan, an app known for food delivery, now also offers credit. The financial arm of JD.com, an e-commerce firm, and Lufax, an online wealth-management platform, are on track for IPOS this year.
蚂蚁的另一个威胁是其竞争对手。在2013年之前，移动支付或多或少是蚂蚁的专属域名。但是腾讯利用其无处不在的微信进军市场，占据了近40%的市场份额。其他公司也有金融抱负。美团(Meituan)是一款以送餐闻名的应用程序，现在也可以提供信贷。电子商务公司京东(JD.com)的金融部门和在线财富管理平台上海陆家嘴国际金融资产交易市场股份有限公司(Lufax)今年都有望上市。
muscle in (on somebody/something)
- (informal, disapproving) to involve yourself in a situation when you have no right to do so, in order to get something for yourself强行干涉;粗暴干涉
So far these competitors have a much smaller financial footprint than Ant’s. Partly this is because they do not have the same breadth. Shawn Yang of Blue Lotus, a boutique Chinese investment bank, says that Tencent, for instance, has high-frequency but low-value consumption data, less rich than the trove that Ant has thanks to Alibaba, which accounts for more than half of Chinese online retail sales.
到目前为止，这些竞争对手的金融足迹要比蚂蚁人小得多。部分原因是因为它们他们涉足领域没有蚂蚁广。中国精品投行蓝莲花(Blue Lotus)的杨子潇(Shawn Yang)举例说：腾讯拥有高频但低价值的消费数据，其数据不如蚂蚁丰富。蚂蚁的数据主要来源于占中国在线零售一半以上的阿里巴巴。
footprint
- the amount of space that is covered on a surface by something (such as a computer)(某物的)占用空间，覆盖区域
breadth
- the quality of including many things : the wide scope or range of something广度;广泛性
trove
- a large supply of something such as art or information 大量;大批
But it is also a matter of business culture. The most controversial episode in Ant’s history came in 2011 when Mr Ma spun it out from Alibaba, without notifying SoftBank and Yahoo, which together held about 70% of Alibaba’s shares back then. Mr Ma explained that Chinese regulations forbade foreigners from owning domestic payments firms, though there may have been work-arounds. Some suspected that he wanted to bring in powerful investors closer to home. Ant’s earliest rounds of fundraising as an independent firm did indeed attract major state-owned enterprises. A stake was also sold to a private equity firm managed by the grandson of Jiang Zemin, China’s paramount leader during Alibaba’s early years.
但这也是企业文化的问题。蚂蚁有史以来最具争议的事件发生在2011年，当时马云将蚂蚁从阿里巴巴分拆出来，却没有告知软银和雅虎，当时软银和雅虎共同持有阿里巴巴约70%的股份。马云解释说：尽管当时可能还有其他一些解决办法，但中国的法规禁止外国人拥有国内支付公司。有人怀疑他想引入更亲近的强大投资者。作为独立公司，蚂蚁最早的几轮融资确实吸引了大型国有企业。#这里省略一句话，有兴趣的自己看原文#。
spin out = spin off
- A corporate spin-off, also known as a spin-out, or starburst, is a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" a section as a separate business.
spin something ↔ off
- (business商业, especially North American English) to form a new company from parts of an existing one从…脱离出来(组建新公司)
Yet in retrospect the spin-off has a clear strategic rationale. As a standalone company Ant has had the motivation to explore distant corners of the banking system and act aggressively. An executive with another e-commerce company says that its financial unit worries about making mistakes that might taint the group’s core retail business. Ant, by contrast, has diversified, with less than 10% of its revenues now from Alibaba. For China’s other e-commerce dynamos, its success offers a template. They may be several years behind but the fintech race is far from over.
但是回想起来，分拆具有明确的战略依据。作为一家独立公司，蚂蚁曾积极探索银行系统的遥远角落并采取积极行动。另一家电子商务公司的高管表示，其金融部门担心会犯下可能损害集团核心零售业务的错误。相比之下，蚂蚁更加多元化，阿里巴巴的收入只占整个蚂蚁集团的不到10%。对于中国的其他电商公司来说，蚂蚁的成功是一个榜样。他们可能落后了几年，但金融科技竞赛还远没有结束。
rationale
- rationale (behind/for/of something) the principles or reasons which explain a particular decision, course of action, belief, etc.基本原理;根本原因
taint
- to damage or harm the quality of something or the opinion that people have of somebody/something使腐坏;污染;玷污，败坏(名声)
The final danger for Ant has the most global resonance: the nature of its model. Unsecured lending to small borrowers is risky, whichever way it is done. Indeed the coronavirus pandemic has offered a sharp test for Ant. Delinquent loans (more than 30 days past due) issued via its app nearly doubled from 1.5% of its outstanding total in 2019 to 2.9% in July. Yet that is better than most other banks in China. Is that because of Ant’s prowess? Some critics say that it reflects its market power. Given the centrality of Alipay and Alibaba to their operations, few dare to default on Ant loans, worried that a downgraded credit rating may damage other parts of their business.
蚂蚁的最终危机具有最大的全球共鸣：其模型的本质。无论采取哪种方式，向小额借款人提供无抵押贷款都是有风险的。确实，新冠疫情向蚂蚁提出了一个严峻的考验。通过其应用程序发行的拖欠贷款(逾期30天以上)几乎从其2019年未偿还总额的1.5%翻了一番，到7月达到2.9%。但这比中国大多数其他银行都要低。那是因为蚂蚁的能力吗?一些批评家说：这反映了它的市场力量。考虑到支付宝和阿里巴巴在其业务中的核心地位，几乎没有人敢于拖欠蚂蚁贷款，担心信用评级被降级可能损害其其他业务。
delinquent
- (North American English, finance金融) (of a sum of money款项) not having been paid in time到期未付的
prowess
- great skill at doing something非凡的技能;高超的技艺;造诣
default (on something)
- to fail to do something that you legally have to do, especially by not paying a debt违约，不履行义务(尤指不偿还债务)
Still, many bankers are persuaded that Ant truly does have an advantage in its analytics. “They don’t need quarterly statements. They see your daily flow of funds. They know who your customer is. They know who your customer’s customer is,” says one. Based on the address for e-commerce deliveries, Ant has more up-to-date information about where someone lives and works than a bank. Based on what that person buys, Ant can work out their income bracket and their habits, preferences and way of life.
尽管如此，许多银行家还是相信蚂蚁确实在分析方面具有优势。有人说：“他们不需要季度报表。他们能看到你每天的资金流向。他们知道你的客户是谁。他们知道你的客户的客户是谁。”根据电商快递的地址，蚂蚁拥有比银行更新的关于用户的生活和工作地点的最新信息。根据其所购买的商品，蚂蚁可以计算出他们的收入档次以及他们的习惯、偏好和生活方式。
statement
- a printed record of money paid, received, etc.结算单;清单;报表
bracket
- price, age, income, etc. bracket prices, etc. within a particular range(价格、年龄、收入等的)组级，等级
But according to Hui Chen, a finance professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has worked on research projects with Ant, individual and systemic risks are different. The machine learning that underpins Ant’s algorithms observes individual behaviour again and again, and is then able to detect patterns and anomalies. But if risks do not appear in the historical data—say, a big economic shock—the same machine learning may stumble.
但是，根据麻省理工学院金融学教授陈辉(Hui Chen)的研究，他与蚂蚁一起从事研究项目，个人风险和系统风险是不同的。支持蚂蚁算法的机器学习可以一次又一次地观察个体行为，然后能够检测出模式和异常。但是，如果历史数据中没有出现风险(例如：巨大的经济冲击)，则同一机器学习可能会失败。
There are also some limitations hardwired into Ant’s strategy. By design, it aims for high-volume, small-scale borrowers and investors. “Their analytical advantage is most significant with this mass market, where traditional banking models are most inaccessible,” says Mr Chen. Most corporate lending—about 60% of all credit in China—will remain off limits. Ant also has an awkward relationship with banks. It relies on them to fund the loans on its platform, but as it grows it may become a competitor in their eyes. For now that is not much of a concern, given that it focuses on borrowers ignored by banks. But it means that Ant must befriend the very institutions that it once set out to disrupt.
蚂蚁的战略也有其固有的局限性。通过设计，它针对的是大批量、小规模的借款人和投资者。陈先生说：“他们的分析优势在这个大众市场最为重要，而传统银行模式很难触及大众市场。”大多数企业贷款(约占中国总信贷的60%)将无法实现。蚂蚁与银行之间的关系也很微妙。它依靠他们在其平台上为贷款提供资金，但是随着它的发展，它可能会成为他们眼中的竞争者。就目前而言，这并不是什么大问题，因为它关注的是银行看不上的借款人。但这意味着，蚂蚁必须与曾经打算改变的机构友好相处。
hardwired
- (of a skill, quality or type of behaviour) present as part of who you are and the way your brain is made, not learned from experience(某种技能、品质或行为)与生俱来的，固有的
off-limits
- off-limits (to somebody) (of a place地方) where people are not allowed to go不准进入的;禁止入内的
befriend somebody
- to become a friend of somebody, especially somebody who needs your help(尤指和需要帮助者)做朋友;友善相待
Doubts exist about its investment and insurance platforms, too. Ant has excelled in selling money-market funds to a plethora of retail investors. Moving up the value chain could be harder. “They are great at selling penny products. But that’s not where you make the money in insurance,” says Sam Radwan of Enhance, a consultancy. To close a deal on a valuable, complex policy like a variable annuity, brokers typically speak with consumers several times. “No ordinary customer is going to trust an online broker for something that complicated,” says Mr Radwan.
对其投资和保险平台也存有疑问。蚂蚁擅长将货币市场基金出售给众多散户投资者。提升价值链的难度可能更大。咨询公司Enhance的Sam Radwan说：“他们擅长销售便士产品。但在保险业里这种方式行不通。”为了完成一项有价值的、复杂的保险单(如可变年金)交易，经纪人通常会与消费者多次对话。Radwan先生说：“没有任何普通客户会因为复杂的事情而相信一个在线经纪人。”
plethora
- an amount that is greater than is needed or can be used过多;过量;过剩
policy
- a written statement of a contract of insurance保险单
Doing the jitterbug
- 跳吉特巴舞(20世纪40年代的一种欢快的舞蹈)
Ant’s global ambitions are also running into problems beyond its control. It has stakes in around ten different fintech companies in Asia, such as Paytm in India. Boosters once imagined a world connected by Ant, its credit-to-investment architecture straddling borders. The first blow to that vision came in 2018 when America blocked Ant’s acquisition of MoneyGram, a money-transfer firm, which would have established Ant as a force in global remittances. Security concerns over Ant have increased as China’s foreign policy has become more aggressive. Little wonder that Ant plans to devote just a tenth of its IPO proceeds to cross-border expansion.
蚂蚁的全球目标也遇到了无法控制的问题。它拥有亚洲大约十家不同金融科技公司的股份，例如印度的Paytm。Boosters公司曾经想象过一个由蚂蚁连接的世界，它的信贷-投资的架构跨越国界。该愿景第一次受到打击是在2018年，当时美国阻止了蚂蚁收购汇款公司MoneyGram，这本来可能成为蚂蚁全球汇款的一支力量。随着中国外交政策变得更加积极，对蚂蚁的安全问题也越来越多。难怪蚂蚁计划仅将其IPO收益的十分之一用于跨境扩张。
remittance
- the act of sending money to somebody in order to pay for something汇付;汇款
blow
- blow (to somebody/something) a sudden event that hurts or damages somebody/something, causing the people affected to be sad or disappointed打击;挫折
Despite all these limitations, one lesson from Ant’s decade in existence is that future possibilities remain vast. Ms Li of Invesco gushes about her fund-management firm’s mini-site within the Alipay app, one of the tens of thousands of separate sections that constitute the Ant ecosystem. In September Invesco hosted a live-stream on the mini-site to discuss its market outlook. More than 700,000 tuned in—just one example of how Ant has become the main doorway into the financial system for tens of millions of people. And for all those who have walked through it, many more have not. Ant will soon know where they live, how much they earn and what they want. It is coming for them.
尽管存在所有这些局限，但从蚂蚁的十年历程中可以得出的一个经验：未来的可能性仍然很大。景顺长城的李女士盛赞自己的基金管理公司在支付宝应用程序中的微型网站，该网站是是成千上万个构成蚂蚁生态的网站之一。9月，景顺长城在微型网站上主办了一场直播，讨论了其市场前景。当时有70万人收看了直播，这只是蚂蚁如何成为数千万要进入金融系统的人的主要门户的一个例子。对于所有经历过它的人来说，还有更多的人没有经历过。蚂蚁很快就会知道他们的住所、收入和期望。蚂蚁正向他们走来。
gush
- (disapproving) to express so much praise or emotion about somebody/something that it does not seem sincere过分称赞;夸张地表现对…的感情;装腔作势
tune in (to something)
- to listen to a radio programme or watch a television programme收听(收音机广播节目);收看(电视节目)
