當金融遇上互聯網 The sharing economy is a playground for Wall Street
When the concept of “peer-to-peer” lending popped up a decade ago, libertarians and leftwing idealists alike cheered. For the idea of using the internet to match borrowers who needed cash with lenders seemed to epitomise the sharing economy.
10年前“個人對個人”（peer-to-peer,簡稱P2P）貸款突然興起時，自由主義者和左翼理想主義者都爲之歡呼。這是因爲，利用互聯網爲需要資金的借款者與貸款者牽線搭橋似乎帶有“分享型經濟”的特徵。
What made P2P sound doubly exciting — at least in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis — was that these platforms also appeared to thumb a nose at the banks. Or, to use the technical term, P2P threatened to “disintermediate” mainstream finance, in a democratic way.
令P2P聽起來更加激動人心的是——至少在2008年經濟危機之後的一段時期裏——這些平臺似乎也對銀行嗤之以鼻。或者，用專業術語來說，P2P以民主的方式威脅着將主流金融“去中介化”。
But that utopian ideal is starting to be turned upside down. True, if you look at the profile of who is providing loans on America’s biggest P2P platforms today, such as Lending Club and Prosper Marketplace, you will still see wealthy “mom and pop” investors, attracted by the hope of good returns in a low interest rate world. Since 2009 loans on the big P2P platforms have generated yields of between 5 and 9 per cent.
但是現在，這種不切實際的想法即將被顛覆。沒錯，如果看看美國各大P2P平臺上——如Lending Club和Prosper Marketplace——貸款方的介紹，你還是會看到富有的“夫妻店”投資者——在當今的低利率時代，對高回報率的期待把他們吸引到互聯網平臺上。自2009年以來，大型P2P平臺貸款產生的收益率在5%至9%之間。
But those plucky individuals are in a minority — and a shrinking one. These days, four-fifths of the finance on P2P platforms [all of them? says just Lending Club in source i can find our story dated December 14.2014]comes from institutions, such as hedge funds, or arms of the established banks.
但是，大膽的個人投資者畢竟是少數——而且越來越少。如今，P2P平臺上五分之四的資金來自機構，如對衝基金，或者老牌銀行的分支。
Indeed, hedge funds and banks are now moving into this sector with such a vengeance that they are not only repackaging those P2P loans into new instruments, via securitisation; they are lending via these platforms too.
的確，對衝基金和銀行正在大張旗鼓地進入P2P領域——不僅通過證券化把P2P貸款重新包裝爲新的金融工具，還通過這些平臺從事貸款業務。
Earlier this year, for example, Citigroup agreed a $150m tie-up with Lending Club, to finance loans. Citizens Bank has bought $200m of loans from SoFi, a big student loan-focused marketplace lender, and committed to buy $300m more. Instead of thumbing their nose at banks, in other words, P2P lenders are co-opting them, if not being co-opted too. In financial terms, this is like Uber quietly cutting deals with established taxi companies.
例如，今年早些時候，花旗集團(Citigroup)與Lending Club簽署一項價值1.5億美元的貸款融資合作協議。美國國民銀行(Citizens Bank)從專注學生貸款市場的大型網貸平臺SoFi購買了2億美元貸款，並承諾再購買3億美元。換句話說，P2P貸款平臺非但沒有對銀行嗤之以鼻，反而要麼拉攏銀行、要麼被銀行拉攏。這就好比Uber與出租車公司悄然達成協議。
Does this matter? The answer to that question depends on what you think the main priority for modern finance should be. If you think that the system needs to provide more credit to the economy, in order to to boost growth, this quiet transformation should seem welcome.
這有關係嗎？答案取決於你對現代金融的首要任務怎麼看。如果你認爲金融體系需要爲經濟提供更多信貸以刺激增長的話，這種悄然轉變似乎應該受到歡迎。
After all, the arrival of banks and hedge funds will enable the sector to expand more rapidly. And borrower demand seems sky high; PwC predicts that P2P lending will swell to $150bn by 2025, from $5.5bn in 2014.
畢竟，銀行和對衝基金進入有利於該行業更快擴張。而且借款人的需求似乎非常旺盛；普華永道(PwC)預計，到2025年，P2P網貸規模將由2014年的55億美元暴增至1500億美元。
But if you think that the main goal of finance should be to create safe, clear rules for capital flows, then this pattern might also make you weep. If you ask bankers why they are moving into P2P lending, some will point to the high returns they hope to earn (since the average loan commands an interest rate of around 13 per cent, margins are high). Others will cite the need for banks to copy clever technology ideas and become more entrepreneurial.
但是，如果你認爲金融業的主要目標應該是爲資金流動制定安全、明確的規則，那麼這種模式或許會讓你失望。如果你問銀行家爲什麼要進入P2P網貸行業，一些人會說想要獲得高回報（因爲平均而言貸款的利率爲13%左右，息差很高）。其他人會稱，銀行需要學習聰明的技術理念並更具創業精神。
But there is another, grubbier motive: regulatory arbitrage. “We like P2P because we can do things there that we can’t do in our main bank,” as a senior New York banker recently (and sheepishly) explained at a conference.
但是，還有另外一個更卑鄙的動機：監管套利。“我們喜歡P2P，因爲我們在那裏可以做一些我們在銀行沒法做的事，”紐約一名銀行高管最近在一次會議上（帶點不好意思地）解釋稱。
Sharp-eyed readers might feel a sense of déjà vu. The idea of using innovations to dance around tough capital rules is hardly new: in the early years of the past decade, banks used structured investment vehicles and collateralised debt obligations in the same way.
眼尖的讀者或許會有一種似曾相識的感覺。利用創新在嚴格的資本規則下打擦邊球的想法並不新鮮：在過去十年的頭幾年，銀行以相同方式利用結構化投資工具和債務抵押債券(CDO)來規避監管。
They also took advantage of cracks in regulatory structures to create products that policymakers could not easily monitor or control (it was unclear, for instance, who was supposed to oversee mortgage derivatives).
它們還利用監管結構中的漏洞，創造了政策制定者不易監管或控制的產品（抵押貸款衍生品由誰監管在那時並不明確）。
A sense of fragmentation is hampering policymakers again. And as Kara Stein, a commissioner at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, has observed: “We can’t afford a fragmented regulatory architecture.”
一種分散的感覺再次困擾政策制定者。正如美國證交會(SEC)委員卡拉斯坦(Kara Stein)所說的：“我們負擔不起一個支離破碎的監管體系的後果。”
It is unclear whether the regulators’ remit covers all the upstarts.
現在尚不清楚監管部門的職責範圍是否覆蓋所有新平臺。
Perhaps this does not matter. The P2P sector is a tiddler compared to the overall financial world (or the pile of mortgage derivatives which sowed havoc in 2008). And unlike the pension funds which were exposed to mortgage-backed securities in 2006, for example, the banks and hedge funds understand the dangers of credit losses. So even if P2P loans turn bad in the future, this should not pose wider risks.
也許這並不重要。與整個金融世界（或者引發2008年災難的抵押貸款衍生品的規模）相比，P2P行業就像一條小魚。比如，與在2006年存在抵押貸款支持證券相關敞口的養老基金不同，銀行和對衝基金知道信貸損失的危險。因此，即使P2P貸款在未來變成壞賬，也不會構成更大範圍的風險。
Nevertheless, history suggests that whenever innovation and regulatory arbitrage are combined in an era of ultra cheap money, it often ends in tears — somewhere. If nothing else, that suggests that policymakers need to find ways to stop activity falling between the regulatory cracks; not least because financiers are endlessly creative at dancing in those gaps.
儘管如此，歷史表明，在資金極其廉價的時代，一旦創新和監管套利結合在一起，通常會以眼淚收場——在某個地方。這至少表明，政策制定者必須想辦法阻止某些活動偷偷鑽了監管漏洞；尤其是因爲金融家在鑽空子方面擁有無限的創造力。
