【纽伦港新动态•第360期】金融科技的机遇与挑战
文/ Lael Brainard（美联储官员）;编译（节选）/王昌耀
金融科技为什么重要？
在我今天的讲话中，我想分享一些新兴的金融技术以及它与我们工作的相关性。金融科技（Fintech）有潜力转变金融服务的方式以及支付清算的潜在流程。过去几年我们见证了许多数字化金融产品和服务的诞生。就像智能手机彻底改变了我们沟通和分享信息的方式一样，金融科技可以从各个方面影响我们金融业务的办理，从支付到信贷再到理财规划等等。随着金融服务的不断加深，在随需应变的世界中，消费者、企业、和金融机构都渴望找到新的方法来使从事金融交易更方便、及时、安全、高效。
在许多情况下，金融科技通过移动设备来完善金融服务。当今的消费者，尤其是千禧一代，已经习惯了这个拥有大量应用程序的信息时代。几乎所有类型的消费——订购杂货、下载电影、买家具、或安排照顾孩子等等，都可以在移动设备上完成，并且消费者可以根据自己的偏好对应用程序进行选择，十分方便快捷。这种即时的、定制性服务扩展到金融行业是不可避免的。事实上，根据联邦储备委员会最近的移动金融服务调查，超过三分之二的18至29岁的消费者有一个手机和一个电子银行账户。
新兴金融科技平台能帮助消费者和小型企业实时掌控自己的财务状况。一旦这项技术取得广泛的应用，非现金转账、消费买单、给国外亲友汇款这些金融操作都会变得极其简单。理财规划工具基于消费者的承受能力设定储蓄额度，帮助消费者在支出上设置财务目标并提供相关反馈。另外，金融科技的应用能自动将闲置的账户余额转移到储蓄账户，根据每月的支出和收入情况，有效地选择储蓄额度，同时为消费者提供实时应计收入反馈而不是等到固定发薪日才汇报收入。这项服务对于接近百分之五十的具有流动性储蓄限制的用户极有价值。现在谈论这些创新的总体影响还为时过早，但它们确实能帮助消费者更好的管理现金流，以减少使用昂贵的信贷产品。
金融科技为消费者和小型企业提供了获得信贷与金融服务的优质途径。通过缩减贷款流程和承销费用，网络平台可以让金融机构以更低的成本为家庭和小企业提供贷款。此外，大量的数据分析可以让银行更好地评估潜在借款人的信誉，促进贷款流向那些更负责任的公司与个人。近年来，也有一些创新型社区金融机构与网络借贷公司发展伙伴关系，以扩大小企业的信贷途径。
培养对社会有益的创新以扩张消费者和小企业的信贷是一项巨大挑战。一些金融科技产品仅仅提供了诸如汽车市场的高成本贷款而不是对社会有益的金融服务，这将使其失去大量的机会。
美联储深入探讨金融科技
为了更好地理解信贷、支付与其他领域的技术变革，美国联邦储备理事会约谈了大量的市场参与者以了解这类有益创新所存在的壁垒。在全国30多个地区，我们董事会和储备银行员工的独特结构， 使我们能够在全国市场和各类创新中心，帮助建立有效的沟通渠道，包括非银行参与者与我们都能够不定期联系。
美国联邦储备理事会同时也致力于与其他监管机构进行多方交流，以求最大限度的达成监管要求与管理方法的一致性。与其他监管机构交换和讨论金融科技的相关意见对评估和审查风险至关重要，在适当情况下，关于金融科技的应用达成法律、法规上的一致意见。
最后，我们意识到专业技术的价值。对于金融科技，与其他任何新兴金融产品或服务一样，美联储都将尽其所能的学习以确保对银行和其他金融机构所参与的科技创新项目有一个全面的了解，并从中得到政策和管理方法的发展方向。为此，联邦储备委员会专门建立了一个多学科工作组进行金融科技创新的360度分析。我们将把美联储中关于金融科技的所有好想法都集合起来，对各个关键领域进行评估——从监管到社区发展，从金融稳定到移动支付——评估技术发展所带来的影响。这是美联储的责任。为了努力做到这一点，美联储的高级官员和工作人员密切关注金融科技的发展进程，评估其对金融服务、政策监管方面的影响。
结论
当前金融数字化的发展，包含新型商业模式的建立，是十分重要，值得政策制定者和监管机构认真思忖与经营。作为政策制定者，我们想要促进创新，以获得广泛社会效益，但同时也要确保对风险进行全面管理。为了维护公共利益，第一要义就是要考虑与分析最接近新科技与产品创新的市场参与者的感受。但是监管机构总是寻求分析技术发展本身所带来的影响，而忽视了参与者的感受。我们应该关注这些新技术的潜在社会效益，并进行必要的监管调整，时刻保持警惕，确保充分有效的管理风险。
附英文原文：
The Opportunities and Challenges of Fintech
Why Is Fintech Important?
In my remarks today, I'd like to share a few thoughts about emerging financial technologies and their relevance to our work.1 Fintech has the potential to transform the way that financial services are delivered and designed as well as the underlying processes of payments, clearing, and settlement.2 The past few years have seen a proliferation of new digitally enabled financial products and services, in addition to new processes and platforms. Just as smartphones revolutionized the way in which we interact with one another to communicate and share information, fintech may impact nearly every aspect of how we interact with each other financially, from payments and credit to savings and financial planning. In our continuously connected, on-demand world, consumers, businesses, and financial institutions are all eager to find new ways to engage in financial transactions that are more convenient, timely, secure, and efficient.
In many cases, fintech puts financial change at consumers' fingertips--literally. Today's consumers, particularly millennials, are accustomed to having a wide range of applications, options, and information immediately accessible to them. Almost every type of consumer transaction--ordering groceries, downloading a movie, buying furniture, or arranging childcare, to name a few--can be done on a mobile device, and there are often multiple different applications that consumers can choose for each of these tasks based on their preferences. It seems inevitable for this kind of convenience, immediacy, and customization to extend to financial services. Indeed, according to the Federal Reserve Board's most recent survey of mobile financial services, fully two-thirds of consumers between the ages of 18 and 29 having a mobile phone and a bank account use mobile banking.
New fintech platforms are giving consumers and small businesses more real-time control over their finances. Once broad adoption is achieved, it is technologically quite simple to conduct cashless person-to-person fund transfers, enabling, among other things, the splitting of a check after a meal out with friends or the sending of remittances quickly and cheaply to friends or family in other countries. Financial management tools are automating savings decisions based on what consumers can afford, and they are helping consumers set financial goals and providing feedback on expenditures that are inconsistent with those goals. In some cases, fintech applications are automatically transferring spare account balances into savings, based on monthly spending and income patterns, effectively making savings the default choice. Other applications are providing consumers with more real-time access to earnings as they are accrued rather than waiting for their regular payday. This service may be particularly valuable to the nearly 50 percent of adults with extremely limited liquid savings.4 It is too early to know what the overall impact of these innovations will be, but they offer the potential to empower consumers to better manage cash flow to reduce the need for more expensive credit products to cover short-term cash needs.
One particularly promising aspect of fintech is the potential to expand access to credit and other financial services for consumers and small businesses. By reducing loan processing and underwriting costs, online origination platforms may enable financial services providers to more cost effectively offer smaller-balance loans to households and small businesses than had previously been feasible.6 In addition, broader analysis of data may allow lenders to better assess the creditworthiness of potential borrowers, facilitating the responsible provision of loans to some individuals and firms that otherwise would not have access to such credit. In recent years, some innovative Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) have developed partnerships with online alternative lenders, with the goal of expanding credit access to underserved small businesses.
The challenge will be to foster socially beneficial innovation that responsibly expands access to credit for underserved consumers and small businesses, and those who otherwise would qualify only for high-cost alternatives. It would be a lost opportunity if, instead of expanding access in a socially beneficial way, some fintech products merely provided a vehicle to market high-cost loans to the underserved, or resulted in the digital equivalent of redlining, exacerbating rather than ameliorating financial access inequities.
Federal Reserve Fintech Engagement
To better understand technological changes in lending, payments, and other areas, the Federal Reserve has been engaging with a wide range of market participants to understand barriers to socially beneficial innovations. Our unique structure, with Board and Reserve Bank staff in over 30 locations, allows us to tap expertise in markets and innovation centers across the country to help establish channels of communication, including with nonbank participants with whom we may not otherwise have regular contact.
The Federal Reserve also engages in ongoing communication with other regulators to promote, to the greatest extent possible, consistency in approaches and alignment of supervisory requirements. Exchanging ideas and discussing fintech innovations with other regulators is critical to understanding and vetting risks and, where appropriate, reaching consistent views regarding the application of laws, regulations, or guidance.
Finally, we recognize the value of technical expertise. With fintech, as with any other emerging financial product or service, the Federal Reserve is learning as much as we can to ensure that we have a robust understanding of the technologies and activities in which banks and other financial firms are engaging, and to inform the development of our policy and supervisory approaches. To that end, the Federal Reserve Board has established a multidisciplinary working group that is engaged in a 360-degree analysis of fintech innovation. We are bringing together the best thinking across the Federal Reserve System, spanning key areas of responsibility--from supervision to community development, from financial stability to payments--to assess the impact of technological development on the Federal Reserve's responsibilities. As part of this effort, Federal Reserve senior officials and staff have been closely watching developments in fintech, evaluating its impact on financial services delivery, and assessing the policy and supervisory implications in this arena.
Conclusion
Current developments in the digitization of finance, including the establishment of new business models, are important and deserving of serious engagement on the part of policymakers and regulators. As policymakers, we want to facilitate innovation where it has the potential to yield broad social benefit, while ensuring that risks are thoroughly managed. In safeguarding the public interest, the first line of analysis and protection will always rest with the market participants closest to the new technologies and product innovations and to the organizations that consider adopting them. But regulators also should seek to analyze the implications of technology developments through constructive and timely engagement. We should be attentive to the potential social benefits of these new technologies, prepared to make the necessary regulatory adjustments if their safety and integrity are proven and their potential benefits found to be in the public interest, and vigilant to ensure risks are well understood and managed.（完）
文章来源：美联储官网 2016年12月2日（本文仅代表作者观点）
本篇编辑：王昌耀
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