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[2012.05.19] World,here we come 世界，该我们大展拳脚了 Winners and losers 赢家和输家 World, here we come 世界，该我们大展拳脚了 The biggest beneficiaries from the retail renaissance will be large international banks 零售业复兴的最大受益者将是大型国际银行 100 Special report - Winners and losers.mp3 (3.72 MB, 下载次数: 325) May 19th 2012 | from the print edition  ALMOST TWO DECADES ago Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft, famously dismissed retail banks as “dinosaurs”. Conservative bankers regularly trot out this anecdote to show that it is naive to expect rapid change in such a traditional business. Would-be innovators in banking, for their part, often quote another comment by Mr Gates: that people tend to “overestimate the [technological] change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten”. 在差不多二十年前，微软公司创始人之一比尔?盖茨把零售银行视作“恐龙”置之不理的事迹众所周知。保守的银行业者经常提起这件轶事，表示期待这样一个传统的行业在短时间内发生变化是幼稚的行为。而想要在银行业创新的人们，站在他们的角度，则经常引述盖茨先生的另一条评论：即人们往往会“高估未来两年内的【技术】变革，而低估其在未来十年间的变化。” Banking has been surprisingly little touched by the rise of the internet. It may have embraced many of the trappings of digitisation, such as providing customers with online access to their bank accounts, yet retail banks have invested more effort in bricks than in clicks over the past decade. At a time when businesses from music stores to travel agents have already disappeared from most high streets, the banking industry, which in the mid-1990s by some estimates already had more square metres of retail space than did general department stores in America, has built yet more branches. 令人意外的是，银行业并未因网络的崛起受多大影响。它可能接受了数字化的一些标志，比如为消费者提供从网上进入其银行账户的途径。但是在过去十年，零售银行在实体建设上比在网络上投入了更多的精力。当音乐商店和旅行社之类的生意已在大多数商业大街上销声匿迹的时候，银行业又设立了更多的分行。而据估，在90年代中期，银行业在美国的面积已经大于全体百货公司。 Many bankers are feeling complacent. Having been told in turn that the credit card, the ATM and the telephone would completely transform their business, and then found that business carried on much as usual, they have been rightly sceptical about similar predictions for the internet. Those who decided to adopt digital technology early on incurred huge costs in building new computer systems on top of the outdated ones that were already in place, for little immediate benefit. Francisco González, the chairman and chief executive of BBVA, compares this task to changing the engine on a lorry as it is speeding down a road. 很多银行业者沾沾自喜。在被轮番告知信用卡，自动提款机和电话将彻底改变银行业，而银行业却像往常一样发展之后，他们对网络的类似预测持怀疑态度，这是理所当然的。有些人在早期就决定采用数字技术，他们投入大量资金在已有的过时的系统上建立新的计算机系统，由此获得的直接利润少之又少。毕尔巴鄂比斯开银行（BBVA）的董事长兼首席执行官弗朗西斯科?冈萨雷斯把这项工作比作给一辆飞驰在路上的货车换引擎。 Yet their past scepticism over digitisation now threatens to leave the banks dangerously unprepared for the future. “Technology is at a turning point,” says Mr González. “In a few years’ time you will see that there is a very new way of doing things, and valuations of banks that are doing them will change dramatically.” The migration of banking transactions and customers from branches to mobile phones and to the internet promises to transform not just the ways in which people bank, but also whom they bank with. 然而当初对电子化的怀疑，如今可能使银行陷入对未来毫无准备的危险境地。“技术正处于一个转折点，”冈萨雷斯先生说。“几年之后，你会看到一种全新的做事方式，而人们对于正在这样做的银行的评价也会有显著的变化。”银行交易和消费者将从各分行转向手机和网络，这不仅有望改变人们办理银行业务的方式，还会改变人们对银行的选择。 The lure of cheaper money 赚钱更轻松的诱惑  The first big impact of widespread digitisation is likely to be a transformation of the cost base of those banks that embrace it. For example, Santander has a cost-to-income ratio of 45%, the lowest among big international banks (see chart). Such low costs allow banks to offer more attractive rates on loans and deposits yet still earn profits that will keep shareholders happy. This means that more efficient banks will inevitably get a bigger share of the cake in concentrated markets, such as Britain, and buy weaker, less efficient competitors in fragmented markets such as America. That may do much to restore profitability to a business which has been mercilessly squeezed by requirements for higher capital ratios, at a time when wholesale funding is becoming more expensive or drying up altogether. 数字化普及带来的第一个影响可能是改变了支持电子化银行的成本基础。比如，桑坦德银行的成本对收入比率为45%，在大型的国际银行中是最低的（如图所示）。如此低的成本使银行能提供更有吸引力的贷款和存款利率，同时还能赚取足够多的利润令股东满意。这意味着更有效率的银行必然会在集中市场——比如英国——取得更大的份额，并且在零散市场——比如美国——并购较弱的，效率较低的竞争对手。这对恢复银行业的盈利能力大有帮助，尤其是在批发融资的代价越来越高或者整体正在枯竭的情况下，银行业为满足更高的资本比率的要求，已承受了无情的压榨。 Small, local banks are likely to suffer most. As consumers do more banking online and on their mobile phones, it is becoming less important to maintain bank branches on every street corner. The emphasis now is on clever (and costly) mobile-banking applications and tools that allow customers to aggregate their data and manage all their accounts from a single screen. 小型的本地银行可能要承受最多的考验。因为消费者越来越多地在网上和手机上办理业务，所以在每个街角继续设立分行变得不那么重要了。现在要重视的是智能（且昂贵）的手机银行应用和工具，它们使消费者能在单个屏幕上整合数据并管理其所有的账户。 Observers have long been predicting a “hollowing out” of the middle in banking in which only the very big and efficient and the very small and local would prosper. The high cost of technology and the gains it promises are now tipping the balance more firmly in the direction of the very big ones and against small regional or community banks. And although the big banks that concentrate mainly on domestic business—such as Wells Fargo in America, Itaú in Brazil and Lloyds in Britain—enjoy enormous advantages in their home markets, they now face several fresh challenges. 长期以来，观察员就预测在银行业会出现中间“空洞化”的趋势，在这种情况下只有非常大型的高效的银行和非常小型的本地银行能发展壮大。技术的高昂成本以及它有望带来的高回报使得这一平衡正越发坚定地倾向大型银行，而对小型区域性银行或社区银行不利。然而尽管那些把精力主要集中在国内业务的大型银行——比如美国的富国银行，巴西的伊塔乌银行和英国的劳埃德银行——在本国市场上占据极大的优势，它们现在也要面对一些新的挑战。 For dominant domestic banks the big obstacle to growth is the need to keep the regulators happy. Banking is among the world’s most tightly regulated businesses. In the years since the financial crisis regulation has become more intrusive. This inhibits innovation and raises barriers to entry. Much of the experimentation and innovation in banking has therefore taken place on its fringes: in facilitating payments, for instance, or in finding new ways of crunching data. If disruptive technologies were to threaten the existing order, and hence financial stability, regulators would probably throttle them. 对于占优势地位的国内银行来说，增长的最大阻碍是必须使监管部门满意。银行业是世界上监管最严格的行业之一。金融危机爆发后的几年里，监管变得越发严苛。这限制了创新并提高了进入壁垒。因此银行业很多的实验和创新活动只能在边缘地带进行：比如使支付变得更加便捷，或者寻求处理数据的新方式。一旦颠覆性的技术威胁到现有秩序，从而影响金融稳定，那么监管部门很有可能会取缔这些技术。 At the same time regulators are trying to stop banks from getting too big. Lloyds is having to sell some branches to reduce its dominance of the market. In America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, Bank of America and other large domestic banks are already barred from buying other American retail banks. They can still grow organically, but if their share of domestic deposits rises much above 10% they may come under pressure to call a halt. 与此同时，监管部门正视图防止银行发展过大。劳埃德银行为减少其对市场的占领，正不得不卖掉一些分支机构。在美国，富国银行，摩根大通，美国银行和其它大型的国内银行已被禁止收购美国其它的零售银行。这些银行依旧可以有组织地发展，不过一旦国内存款份额大大超过了10%，那么它们可能会在压力之下叫停业务发展。 That is likely to make them turn their attentions abroad, even as international competitors such as Santander and BNP Paribas start to gain ground in their home markets. Some new regional powerhouses are already emerging. South Africa’s Standard Bank now has branches across Africa. Singapore’s DBS Bank is spreading across Asia and is becoming a formidable competitor to the big international banks such as Standard Chartered, HSBC and Citigroup in some of the world’s fastest-growing markets. 这可能会使这些银行的注意力转向国外，尽管像桑坦德和巴黎银行之类的国际竞争者开始在其国内市场占据优势。一些新的区域性高效银行已崭露头角。南非渣打银行的分行遍及整个非洲。新加坡的星展银行正在亚洲扩展势力，并且在世界上发展最快的一些市场上正逐渐成为诸如渣打银行，汇丰银行和花旗集团此类大型国际银行的一个强劲的竞争对手。 Until now, retail banking (unlike the investment and wholesale sort, which are largely international businesses competing in global markets) has not travelled well, but that is changing, for two reasons. One is that digitisation is at last producing significant economies of scale across national borders. Banks are increasingly able to centralise computer systems and to use common platforms. 到目前为止，零售银行业（不像投资和批发银行业，它们大部分都是国际市场上竞争的国际业务）发展得并不顺利，但是这一现状正在改变，原因有两个。首先，数字化终于在各国之间创造了显著的规模经济。银行集中管理计算机系统和使用通用平台的能力日益提高。 Jan Verplancke, the chief information officer of Standard Chartered, says that international banks build their large computer systems in the places that have the most reliable communications and power networks and are least prone to natural disasters. For his bank, that means running much of its global network out of Hong Kong and London. Until recently, incompatible legacy systems made it very hard to use common computer systems across different countries. Now it is getting easier as banking moves from bespoke mainframe computers to racks of smaller servers that can be scaled up as needed. 渣打银行首席信息官简?韦普朗克说，国际银行在那些通信最稳定、电力网最可靠且最不可能发生自然灾害的地方建立它们的大型计算机系统。对渣打银行而言，这意味着大部分的全球网络在香港和伦敦之外的地方运行。直到最近，不兼容的遗留系统还使得不同国家的银行难以使用通用计算机系统。如今这已经变得越来越容易，因为银行业不再使用定制的电脑主机，而转用机架式的较小的服务器，它们可以根据需要按比例增加。 The second reason why internationalisation is spreading is what McKinsey’s Mr Rodeia calls “economies of skill”, meaning that successful banks are getting better at standardising their procedures and systems. The trailblazer has been Santander, but its relentless effort to make its systems exactly the same everywhere is being emulated by Citigroup, HSBC and Standard Chartered. When Citigroup hit on a successful branch format in Singapore, it quickly replicated it across Asia and in the Americas. 国际化蔓延的第二个原因被麦肯锡的罗德亚先生称作“技能经济”，意思是成功的银行在使其程序和系统标准化方面更加得心应手。这方面的先驱者是桑坦德，但是它为了使系统在每个地方完全一样而付出的不懈努力正被花旗集团，汇丰银行和渣打银行赶超。花旗银行在新加坡无意中发现一个成功的分行模式之后，它迅速在亚洲和美洲复制了这一模式。 This is not to say that local scale is unimportant. As a rule of thumb, both HSBC and Santander reckon that to operate effectively they need at least 5-10% of the market. Standard Chartered provides a full range of services in markets where it is strong and a pared-down version in countries where it has only a small share of the market. “We recognised early on that we could not build a full-scale Standard Chartered everywhere, so we focused on how we would compete rather than doing one size fits all,” says Steve Bertamini, the head of its consumer bank. 这并不是说本地规模不重要。根据经验之谈，汇丰银行和桑坦德同时表示，为了有效经营，它们至少需要5-10%的市场份额。渣打银行在它的强势市场上提供一整套完善的服务，而在它只占了小份额市场的国家，则相应地提供精简后服务。“我们在早期就意识到，我们不可能在每个地方都建立一个全面的渣打银行。因此我们侧重于如何开展竞争，而不是建立一个适合每个地方情况的银行，”渣打银行消费者银行行长史蒂夫?庞德明说。 You’ll never walk alone 你永远不会独行 Economies of skill can also involve “softer” advantages such as sharing knowledge across networks. Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, the chief executive of BNP Paribas, says of its American subsidiary: “The main synergies we have with Bank of the West is the way we run the bank. This is a mid-sized bank that has 100% access to anything that is interesting to it within the BNP Paribas group.” For example, in the middle of San Francisco a commanding storefront is being refurbished for a new wealth-management business being started by Bank of the West. It is using a blueprint provided by its parent but new to the local market. 技能经济也可以包括“更软的”优势，比如在网点之间进行知识共享。巴黎银行首席执行官吉恩-洛朗?博纳费在谈到其美国的附属机构时说：“在我们与西方银行之间起主要协同作用的是我们管理银行的方式。西方银行是一个中型银行，它有权访问巴黎银行集团内部任何令它有兴趣的内容。”比如，旧金山中部地区正在翻修一个主要店面，为西方银行发起的一项新的财富管理业务做准备。西方银行使用的是母公司提供的一个计划图，但对本地市场而言是全新的。 The internationalisation of retail banking is already delivering significant benefits to consumers. In countries with inefficient or oligopolistic banking markets a new outpost of a large international bank can often unleash competition that improves the service provided by all banks in that country. It also allows the small but growing portion of people who work or study abroad to bank seamlessly with the same institution that they use at home. This eases the travails of opening a new account abroad (which sounds simple until you try it) and transferring money across borders. 零售银行业的国际化已经给消费者带来了相当多的好处。在银行业市场效率低下或被寡头垄断的一些国家，大型国际银行设立新基地往往能够促进竞争，从而完善该国所有银行提供的服务。同时也使得在国外工作或生活的，一小部分但是在数量逐渐增多的人们可以选择在国内使用的相同银行顺利地办理业务。这减少了在国外开一个新账户（这听起来容易，做起来才知道麻烦）和跨国转账的麻烦。 The impact will soon be felt not just in retail banking but also in the high-flying world of wholesale and investment banking. As big retail banks spread, they will be well positioned to match buyers and sellers, borrowers and savers across borders. Some of the huge flows of money that before the financial crisis surged through capital markets, leaving rich pickings for investment bankers who arranged bond and share issues or syndicated loans, will now flow through the internal pipes of international banks. Firms such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and UBS, which previously posted bankers in the world’s financial capitals and financed deals in the capital markets, will now play second fiddle to global retail banks that are able to tap the savings of their customers. 很快，不仅在零售银行业而且批发银行和投资银行所在的高端世界也将感觉到这个影响。随着大型零售银行逐渐蔓延，它们将占据有利地位，使国与国之间的买家和卖家、借款人和存款人更好地匹配。金融危机爆发之前，在资本市场涌现了一批巨额流动资金，这让安排债券、股票发行或者银团贷款的投资银行家赚得钵满盆满。如今其中一些资金将流经国际银行的内部渠道。从前将银行家派遣到世界金融中心和资本市场上的融资交易中那些公司，比如摩根士丹利，瑞士信贷和瑞士联合银行，如今将屈居全球零售银行之下，因为后者能够挖掘出消费者的储蓄。 Little more than a decade ago most retail banks feared the internet. Then they decided largely to ignore it. Now it is becoming ever clearer that the future belongs to those that are nimble and far-sighted enough to embrace it. 十余年前，大多数零售银行对网络感到害怕，当时它们大部分决定忽视网络。如今事实正越来越明显，未来掌握在那些反应灵敏、目光长远且能利用好网络的人手中。
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