This year was significant for the financial services industry. From the rise of Bitcoin and Kickstarter to new initiatives from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), there is a fresh entrepreneurial energy in and around financial services.
对于金融服务行业而言，今年具有重大意义。从比特币和众筹融资平台Kickstarter的崛起，到消费者金融保护局（CFPB）的新举措，在金融服务行业内部及周围表现出清新的创业活力。
The 7 financial services trends below aren’t predictions. Rather, this is a list of opportunities and challenges worth watching in the coming year. How will these trends affect your financial business’ strategy?
下面列出的金融服务行业七大发展趋势并不是预测，而是明年值得关注的一系列机遇和挑战。这些趋势将会如何影响你的金融业务的发展策略呢？
New Regulatory Initiatives
新的监管措施
The new CFPB isn’t going anywhere. They have a technically astute team and they are committed to doing things differently to achieve their objectives. In practice, this means the government is trying to be proactive rather than just serving as the “enforcer” through policies and rule-making. It’s smart for the CFPB to avoid being seen only as a punitive legal enforcer and instead establish themselves as thought leaders who know what Americans want. Unfortunately, large financial institutions consider fines and legal action as the cost of doing business. If the CFPB can stay ahead of the industry – even in a small way – by connecting to Americans directly, it can help change the existing dynamic; from reactive to proactive regulation. Regardless of where you stand politically, if executed well, their strategic plan would positively impact Americans. Expect new regulations this coming year, especially around short-term lending and direct-to-consumer marketing tactics.
新成立的CFPB哪儿都不会去。他们拥有一个精明强干的团队，而且他们致力于采用不同的方式开展工作，以实现他们的目标。在实践中，这意味着政府正在试图采取主动，而不是仅仅通过政策和规则的制定充当“执行者”的角色。对于CFPB而言，明智的做法是避免自己仅仅被看作是一个施以惩罚的法律执行者，而是奠定自己的思想领袖地位，了解美国人民想要什么。不幸的是，大型金融机构把罚款和诉讼看成是做生意的成本。如果CFPB能够通过直接与美国民众建立联系而走在行业前面（即使略微超前），那么就可以帮助改变现有的形势，从被动监管变成主动监管。无论你在政治上站在哪一边，如果执行得好的话，CFPB的战略计划将会对美国民众产生积极的影响。预计明年会出台一系列新规，尤其是围绕短期贷款和直接面向消费者的营销策略方面。
Cost of Financial Data
金融数据的成本
Unlike traditional software businesses that rely on Moore’s Law and economies of scale to earn high-margins, financial services companies are expensive to start and operate. In addition to high customer acquisition costs, our businesses have high financial data costs. As financial data becomes increasingly valuable, it’s going to get even harder to build new sustainable financial services businesses. Access will improve but costs won’t go down. Financial services companies that depend on their own data resources will be at an advantage here but because historical financial data is so valuable (your credit history for example), financial data will continue to be expensive.
与依靠摩尔定律和规模经济来赚取高利润的传统软件企业不同，金融服务公司的启动和运营成本高昂。除了高昂的客户获取成本之外，金融服务公司还面临高昂的金融数据成本。随着金融数据变得越来越有价值，建立新的可持续发展的金融服务企业将会越来越困难。市场准入条件将会降低，但成本不会下降。依靠自身数据资源的金融服务公司在这方面将占有优势，但由于历史金融数据非常有价值（比如你的信用记录），金融数据将会继续昂贵。
Easier to Understand Financial Products
更容易理解金融产品
Mandatory regulatory disclosures and the CARD Act aside, it’s becoming clear to financial services companies that transparency can create longer-lasting business relationships with customers. A transactional perspective can be useful for growth but, within the financial services world, customers now have a lot more choice. Companies like Lending Club and Square have proven how clear marketing and compelling terms can create value for everyone. Tricky marketing of complex financial products is much easier to sell than easy to understand financial products that are useful. The industry’s challenge will be in creating more of these better and easier to understand financial products.
撇开监管部门的强制性信息披露规定以及《信用卡法案》（CARD Act）不谈，对于金融服务公司而言，越来越明显的是，透明度可以建立起与客户更为持久的业务关系。从业务的角度出发思考策略可能有益于业绩增长，但在金融服务行业内，客户现在拥有更多的选择。P2P借贷平台Lending Club和移动支付平台Square已经证明，清晰明了的营销和有吸引力的借贷条件会怎样为所有人创造价值。与容易理解的很有用的金融产品相比，以花言巧语进行营销的复杂金融产品更易销售。行业面临的挑战将在于创造更多这类更好而且更容易理解的金融产品。
Automated Financial Tools
自动化的理财工具
In the very early days, software products like Quicken were criticized for being too advanced for the average consumer and had too limited a market to be a worthwhile business. That turned out to be wrong. Today, the same arguments could be made about new automated financial tools like FutureAdvisor, ReadyForZero (our product), Betterment, ShareBuilder and others. But they would also be wrong. People don’t like dealing with finances and software will automate common money management activities. We will see this automation and convenience trend continue throughout 2014.
在很早以前，Quicken等软件产品被批评为对普通消费者而言过于艰深先进，而且市场太有限，不值得花费时间和精力。结果证明这种观点是错误的。如今，可以对个人理财规划网站FutureAdvisor、个人负债管理网站ReadyForZero（我们的产品）、个人投资管理平台Betterment、在线经纪商ShareBuilder及其他新的自动化理财工具提出同样的论调。但是，这些论调也会是错误的。不喜欢与财务和软件打交道的人们，将会让日常理财活动实现自动化。我们将会看到这个自动化和便利化的趋势在整个2014年延续。
Better Financial APIs & Interfaces
更好的财务应用程序接口和界面
If you’re a developer, you know Stripe has created a better interface for processing payments online. This kind of processing service itself isn’t new, the interface is new. This applies to new services like BancBox and Balanced Payments which provide better interfaces to existing, legacy financial services infrastructure. This is a recent developer-centered trend within financial services. Take existing services and improve the interface for technical teams to build upon quickly.
如果你是一名开发者的话，那么你会知道在线支付公司Stripe已经开发了一个更好的界面用于处理在线支付业务。这种处理服务本身并不是新的，但其界面是新的。支付服务平台BancBox和Balanced Payments等新型服务公司也是如此，它们为现有的金融服务基础设施提供更好的界面。这是近来金融服务领域内部以开发者为中心的发展趋势：技术团队利用现有服务，然后改进服务界面，从而迅速建立起金融服务平台。
New Payment & Credit Options
新的支付和信用选择
Regardless of where you stand on Bitcoins and other virtual currencies, we’ll see how these technological advances change the way we do commerce this coming year. Online and offline stores have already started accepting Bitcoins and other alternative payment types. Meanwhile, new credit options like Affirm are taking into account unconventional data sources, like who you are and what you buy, to extend credit in a way that wasn’t possible before. This trend will benefit both customers and merchants, making it easier to execute all types of transactions.
无论你对比特币及其他虚拟货币持有什么看法，我们在明年都会看到这些技术的发展将如何改变我们的商务经营方式。线上和线下的商店已经开始接受比特币和其他替代支付方式。与此同时，移动支付公司Affirm等新的信用选择正在考虑非传统数据来源（比如你是谁，你购买什么产品），从而通过以前不可能的方式提供信贷。这一趋势将有利于消费者和商户，使得各类交易更加容易执行。
Crowdfunding
众筹融资
Crowdfunding is making it easier to raise capital. For investors, crowdfunding has opened up new opportunities and simplified the traditional investment process. Kickstarter has proven – without a doubt – how crowdfunding can help bring independent products to market faster and without the traditional hurdles. We’re now seeing crowdfunding models for real-estate investing, scientific research, and angel investing. This trend is particularly exciting because it means more talented individuals and teams will have access to the capital they need to tackle big opportunities.
众筹融资正在让筹资变得更加容易。对于投资者而言，众筹融资模式开辟了一系列新的机遇，并且简化了传统投资流程。毫无疑问，众筹融资平台Kickstarter已经证明，众筹融资模式能如何帮助独立的产品更快地推向市场，同时不会遭遇传统的障碍。我们现在看到用于房地产投资、科学研究和天使投资的各种众筹融资模式正在出现。这一趋势尤其令人兴奋，因为这意味着更多有才能的个人和团队将会获得他们所需的资本，以把握重大机遇。
What financial services trends do you think will impact your business in 2014?
你认为2014年金融服务行业的哪些趋势将会对你的公司产生影响呢？
