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，銀行業(yè)并未因網(wǎng)絡(luò)的崛起受多大影響。它可能接受了數(shù)字化的一些標(biāo)志，比如為消費(fèi)者提供從網(wǎng)上進(jìn)入其銀行賬戶的途徑。但是在過去十年，零售銀行在實(shí)體建設(shè)上比在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上投入了更多的精力。當(dāng)音樂商店和旅行社之類的生意已在大多數(shù)商業(yè)大街上銷聲匿跡的時(shí)候，銀行業(yè)又設(shè)立了更多的分行。而據(jù)估，在90年代中期，銀行業(yè)在美國的面積已經(jīng)大于全體百貨公司。

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who decided to adopt digital technology early on incurred huge costs in building new computer systems on top of the outdated ones that were already in place, for little immediate benefit.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.

很多銀行業(yè)者沾沾自喜。在被輪番告知信用卡，自動(dòng)提款機(jī)和電話將徹底改變銀行業(yè)，而銀行業(yè)卻像往常一樣發(fā)展之后，他們對(duì)網(wǎng)絡(luò)的類似預(yù)測(cè)持懷疑態(tài)度，這是理所當(dāng)然的。有些人在早期就決定采用數(shù)字技術(shù)，他們投入大量資金在已有的過時(shí)的系統(tǒng)上建立新的計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)，由此獲得的直接利潤少之又少。畢爾巴鄂比斯開銀行（BBVA）的董事長兼首席執(zhí)行官弗朗西斯科?岡薩雷斯把這項(xiàng)工作比作給一輛飛馳在路上的貨車換引擎。

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.

然而當(dāng)初對(duì)電子化的懷疑，如今可能使銀行陷入對(duì)未來毫無準(zhǔn)備的危險(xiǎn)境地。“技術(shù)正處于一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)折點(diǎn)，”岡薩雷斯先生說?！皫啄曛螅銜?huì)看到一種全新的做事方式，而人們對(duì)于正在這樣做的銀行的評(píng)價(jià)也會(huì)有顯著的變化?！便y行交易和消費(fèi)者將從各分行轉(zhuǎn)向手機(jī)和網(wǎng)絡(luò)，這不僅有望改變?nèi)藗冝k理銀行業(yè)務(wù)的方式，還會(huì)改變?nèi)藗儗?duì)銀行的選擇。

The lure of cheaper money

賺錢更輕松的誘惑

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.

數(shù)字化普及帶來的第一個(gè)影響可能是改變了支持電子化銀行的成本基礎(chǔ)。比如，桑坦德銀行的成本對(duì)收入比率為45%，在大型的國際銀行中是最低的（如圖所示）。如此低的成本使銀行能提供更有吸引力的貸款和存款利率，同時(shí)還能賺取足夠多的利潤令股東滿意。這意味著更有效率的銀行必然會(huì)在集中市場(chǎng)——比如英國——取得更大的份額，并且在零散市場(chǎng)——比如美國——并購較弱的，效率較低的競(jìng)爭對(duì)手。這對(duì)恢復(fù)銀行業(yè)的盈利能力大有幫助，尤其是在批發(fā)融資的代價(jià)越來越高或者整體正在枯竭的情況下，銀行業(yè)為滿足更高的資本比率的要求，已承受了無情的壓榨。

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.

小型的本地銀行可能要承受最多的考驗(yàn)。因?yàn)橄M(fèi)者越來越多地在網(wǎng)上和手機(jī)上辦理業(yè)務(wù)，所以在每個(gè)街角繼續(xù)設(shè)立分行變得不那么重要了?，F(xiàn)在要重視的是智能（且昂貴）的手機(jī)銀行應(yīng)用和工具，它們使消費(fèi)者能在單個(gè)屏幕上整合數(shù)據(jù)并管理其所有的賬戶。

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.

長期以來，觀察員就預(yù)測(cè)在銀行業(yè)會(huì)出現(xiàn)中間“空洞化”的趨勢(shì)，在這種情況下只有非常大型的高效的銀行和非常小型的本地銀行能發(fā)展壯大。技術(shù)的高昂成本以及它有望帶來的高回報(bào)使得這一平衡正越發(fā)堅(jiān)定地傾向大型銀行，而對(duì)小型區(qū)域性銀行或社區(qū)銀行不利。然而盡管那些把精力主要集中在國內(nèi)業(yè)務(wù)的大型銀行——比如美國的富國銀行，巴西的伊塔烏銀行和英國的勞埃德銀行——在本國市場(chǎng)上占據(jù)極大的優(yōu)勢(shì)，它們現(xiàn)在也要面對(duì)一些新的挑戰(zhàn)。

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.

對(duì)于占優(yōu)勢(shì)地位的國內(nèi)銀行來說，增長的最大阻礙是必須使監(jiān)管部門滿意。銀行業(yè)是世界上監(jiān)管最嚴(yán)格的行業(yè)之一。金融危機(jī)爆發(fā)后的幾年里，監(jiān)管變得越發(fā)嚴(yán)苛。這限制了創(chuàng)新并提高了進(jìn)入壁壘。因此銀行業(yè)很多的實(shí)驗(yàn)和創(chuàng)新活動(dòng)只能在邊緣地帶進(jìn)行：比如使支付變得更加便捷，或者尋求處理數(shù)據(jù)的新方式。一旦顛覆性的技術(shù)威脅到現(xiàn)有秩序，從而影響金融穩(wěn)定，那么監(jiān)管部門很有可能會(huì)取締這些技術(shù)。

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.

與此同時(shí)，監(jiān)管部門正視圖防止銀行發(fā)展過大。勞埃德銀行為減少其對(duì)市場(chǎng)的占領(lǐng)，正不得不賣掉一些分支機(jī)構(gòu)。在美國，富國銀行，摩根大通，美國銀行和其它大型的國內(nèi)銀行已被禁止收購美國其它的零售銀行。這些銀行依舊可以有組織地發(fā)展，不過一旦國內(nèi)存款份額大大超過了10%，那么它們可能會(huì)在壓力之下叫停業(yè)務(wù)發(fā)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.

這可能會(huì)使這些銀行的注意力轉(zhuǎn)向國外，盡管像桑坦德和巴黎銀行之類的國際競(jìng)爭者開始在其國內(nèi)市場(chǎng)占據(jù)優(yōu)勢(shì)。一些新的區(qū)域性高效銀行已嶄露頭角。南非渣打銀行的分行遍及整個(gè)非洲。新加坡的星展銀行正在亞洲擴(kuò)展勢(shì)力，并且在世界上發(fā)展最快的一些市場(chǎng)上正逐漸成為諸如渣打銀行，匯豐銀行和花旗集團(tuán)此類大型國際銀行的一個(gè)強(qiáng)勁的競(jìng)爭對(duì)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.

到目前為止，零售銀行業(yè)（不像投資和批發(fā)銀行業(yè)，它們大部分都是國際市場(chǎng)上競(jìng)爭的國際業(yè)務(wù)）發(fā)展得并不順利，但是這一現(xiàn)狀正在改變，原因有兩個(gè)。首先，數(shù)字化終于在各國之間創(chuàng)造了顯著的規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)。銀行集中管理計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)和使用通用平臺(tái)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.

渣打銀行首席信息官簡?韋普朗克說，國際銀行在那些通信最穩(wěn)定、電力網(wǎng)最可靠且最不可能發(fā)生自然災(zāi)害的地方建立它們的大型計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)。對(duì)渣打銀行而言，這意味著大部分的全球網(wǎng)絡(luò)在香港和倫敦之外的地方運(yùn)行。直到最近，不兼容的遺留系統(tǒng)還使得不同國家的銀行難以使用通用計(jì)算機(jī)系統(tǒng)。如今這已經(jīng)變得越來越容易，因?yàn)殂y行業(yè)不再使用定制的電腦主機(jī)，而轉(zhuǎn)用機(jī)架式的較小的服務(wù)器，它們可以根據(jù)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.

國際化蔓延的第二個(gè)原因被麥肯錫的羅德亞先生稱作“技能經(jīng)濟(jì)”，意思是成功的銀行在使其程序和系統(tǒng)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化方面更加得心應(yīng)手。這方面的先驅(qū)者是桑坦德，但是它為了使系統(tǒng)在每個(gè)地方完全一樣而付出的不懈努力正被花旗集團(tuán)，匯豐銀行和渣打銀行趕超。花旗銀行在新加坡無意中發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)成功的分行模式之后，它迅速在亞洲和美洲復(fù)制了這一模式。

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.

這并不是說本地規(guī)模不重要。根據(jù)經(jīng)驗(yàn)之談，匯豐銀行和桑坦德同時(shí)表示，為了有效經(jīng)營，它們至少需要5-10%的市場(chǎng)份額。渣打銀行在它的強(qiáng)勢(shì)市場(chǎng)上提供一整套完善的服務(wù)，而在它只占了小份額市場(chǎng)的國家，則相應(yīng)地提供精簡后服務(wù)。“我們?cè)谠缙诰鸵庾R(shí)到，我們不可能在每個(gè)地方都建立一個(gè)全面的渣打銀行。因此我們側(cè)重于如何開展競(jìng)爭，而不是建立一個(gè)適合每個(gè)地方情況的銀行，”渣打銀行消費(fèi)者銀行行長史蒂夫?龐德明說。

You’ll never walk alone

你永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)獨(dú)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.

技能經(jīng)濟(jì)也可以包括“更軟的”優(yōu)勢(shì)，比如在網(wǎng)點(diǎn)之間進(jìn)行知識(shí)共享。巴黎銀行首席執(zhí)行官吉恩-洛朗?博納費(fèi)在談到其美國的附屬機(jī)構(gòu)時(shí)說：“在我們與西方銀行之間起主要協(xié)同作用的是我們管理銀行的方式。西方銀行是一個(gè)中型銀行，它有權(quán)訪問巴黎銀行集團(tuán)內(nèi)部任何令它有興趣的內(nèi)容。”比如，舊金山中部地區(qū)正在翻修一個(gè)主要店面，為西方銀行發(fā)起的一項(xiàng)新的財(cái)富管理業(yè)務(wù)做準(zhǔn)備。西方銀行使用的是母公司提供的一個(gè)計(jì)劃圖，但對(duì)本地市場(chǎng)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.

零售銀行業(yè)的國際化已經(jīng)給消費(fèi)者帶來了相當(dāng)多的好處。在銀行業(yè)市場(chǎng)效率低下或被寡頭壟斷的一些國家，大型國際銀行設(shè)立新基地往往能夠促進(jìn)競(jìng)爭，從而完善該國所有銀行提供的服務(wù)。同時(shí)也使得在國外工作或生活的，一小部分但是在數(shù)量逐漸增多的人們可以選擇在國內(nèi)使用的相同銀行順利地辦理業(yè)務(wù)。這減少了在國外開一個(gè)新賬戶（這聽起來容易，做起來才知道麻煩）和跨國轉(zhuǎn)賬的麻煩。

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，不僅在零售銀行業(yè)而且批發(fā)銀行和投資銀行所在的高端世界也將感覺到這個(gè)影響。隨著大型零售銀行逐漸蔓延，它們將占據(jù)有利地位，使國與國之間的買家和賣家、借款人和存款人更好地匹配。金融危機(jī)爆發(fā)之前，在資本市場(chǎng)涌現(xiàn)了一批巨額流動(dòng)資金，這讓安排債券、股票發(fā)行或者銀團(tuán)貸款的投資銀行家賺得缽滿盆滿。如今其中一些資金將流經(jīng)國際銀行的內(nèi)部渠道。從前將銀行家派遣到世界金融中心和資本市場(chǎng)上的融資交易中那些公司，比如摩根士丹利，瑞士信貸和瑞士聯(lián)合銀行，如今將屈居全球零售銀行之下，因?yàn)楹笳吣軌蛲诰虺鱿M(fèi)者的儲(chǔ)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，大多數(shù)零售銀行對(duì)網(wǎng)絡(luò)感到害怕，當(dāng)時(shí)它們大部分決定忽視網(wǎng)絡(luò)。如今事實(shí)正越來越明顯，未來掌握在那些反應(yīng)靈敏、目光長遠(yuǎn)且能利用好網(wǎng)絡(luò)的人手中。