A few months ago, a small entrepreneur in Nanjing who makes cheap souvenirs sold in Chinese railway stations and local airports borrowed a modest sum from an internet loan shark to pay his staff as his business slowed and cash flow dried up. Although the terms were punishingly high — 1 per cent per day — he thought the slowdown would prove temporary. But the debt crippled him and he was forced to shut down his small enterprise.
几个月前，南京一名小企业主从一家互联网高利贷机构借入了一笔不大不小的资金，用来给员工开工资。他的企业是生产在中国火车站或机场出售的廉价纪念品的，他去借那笔钱是因为业务放缓、现金流枯竭了。尽管对方开出的利率极高——日息1%——但他当时认为，业务放缓将是暂时的。结果这笔债务拖垮了他，他被迫关掉了自己的小企业。
Today there are more than 2,000 peer-to-peer lenders in China. Some of them are outright frauds, enticing lenders to hand money to non-existent borrowers. Others are loan sharks, charging exorbitant interest to customers desperate for short-term funds, as in Nanjing. And others extend credit on reasonable terms to small and medium enterprises, and individual entrepreneurs, who are either too insignificant or too iffy for the banks.
如今，中国已有逾2000家个人对个人(P2P)贷款机构。有些P2P纯属诈骗性质，它们引诱资金出借人把钱“借给”子虚乌有的借款人。有些P2P是高利贷机构，向渴求短期资金的客户收取高得离谱的利息，比如南京的那个例子。还有些P2P以合理的条款向中小企业和小企业主发放信贷——在银行眼中，这两个群体要么就是无足轻重，要么就是太不可靠。
Legitimate P2P internet lenders are slowly achieving critical mass in China, with the support of regulatorsfrustrated by the banks’ reluctance to lend to small borrowers. Many small enterprises are in the service sector, so they lack the collateral that banks demand. In addition, the internet lenders have created a virtual infrastructure, including a credit bureau set up by the Alipay unit of Alibaba, that is comparable with or even superior to that of traditional banks. And while they still account for a tiny percentage of Chinese credit flows, these firms are now being taken seriously by banks as gargantuan as HSBC.
在中国，合法互联网P2P贷款机构的发展正慢慢迎来爆发的那一刻，因为它们得到了监管机构的支持，监管机构对银行不愿放贷给小借款人感到失望。许多小企业是干服务业的，所以它们拿不出银行要求的抵押品。另外，互联网贷款机构创建了一种虚拟基础设施，其中包括阿里巴巴(Alibaba)旗下的支付宝(Alipay)建立的一个征信机构，该机构可与传统银行的同类机构相媲美，甚至比它们还要好。尽管互联网P2P贷款机构仍然只占中国信贷流的很小一部分，但这些机构现在已开始受到汇丰(HSBC)等超大型银行的重视。
More importantly, as P2P lenders gain scale, they are not only changing the way credit works, they also are making mainland China a fairer place and generating jobs that would otherwise not exist. They are also helping the country as it moves away from investment-intensive, export-driven manufacturing to a new, more environmentally friendly template that is based on providing services to the domestic market.
更重要的是，随着P2P贷款机构规模的扩大，它们不但将改变信贷的运行方式，还将让中国变得更公平，并创造出一些原本不会存在的就业岗位。在中国从投资密集型、出口驱动型制造业转向更注重环保的新增长模式（立足点在于向国内市场提供服务）之际，P2P贷款机构对中国也起到了帮助作用。
Shanghai-based Dianrong.com was founded three years ago by Soul Htite, a former Lending Club executive, and his partner, Kevin Guo, an intellectual property lawyer. Now, the firm is about to close its latest fundraising round with money from the private equity arm of Standard Chartered and a second slug from Tiger Global, among others. It is expected to break even next year.
3年前，Lending Club前高管苏海德(Soul Htite)与他的合伙人、知识产权律师郭宇航(Kevin Guo)一起在上海创立了点融网(Dianrong.com)。如今，点融网接近完成其最新一轮融资，投资者包括渣打银行(Standard Chartered)的私人股本部门以及老虎环球基金（Tiger Global，已是第二次投资点融网）等。点融网预计将在明年实现收支平衡。
Dianrong’s mission, says Mr Guo, is to replace the shark lenders. But it is doing far more than that. Many of its customers are part of the new online universe. A big segment of them are Uber drivers who need loans so they can buy or lease cars to provide taxi services.
郭宇航表示，点融网的使命是取代高利贷机构。但点融网正在做的远不止这一点。它的许多客户都来自新的“在线世界”，其中很大一部分是优步(Uber)司机，他们申请贷款是为了买车或租车，以提供出租车服务。
Already, Dianrong has lent money to 400 such people, sometimes with the car as collateral or with a guarantee from the leasing company involved. The system is so flexible that a driver can repay the loan without being locked in to a fixed period and the technology so advanced that Dianrong can monitor in real time how much money the driver collects.
点融网已向400名优步司机提供了贷款，有时会以车为抵押品，或由相关租赁公司提供担保。点融网的机制相当灵活，司机可在不固定的期限内偿还贷款；技术也相当先进，以至于它可实时监控司机的收入。
“Soon companies like Dianrong will influence the price of wonton noodle soup,” says a senior HSBC executive based in Shanghai, with a mix of admiration and alarm. Dianrong is also leveraging its relationship with its lenders to offer them wealth management products.
“不久以后，点融网这样的公司将会影响馄饨面的价格，”汇丰驻上海的一名高管带着钦佩和警告的口气说。点融网还在利用它与资金出借人的关系，向他们提供理财产品。
Mr Guo and others like him deny they are in competition with banks. Rather, they say their clients use P2P lenders to establish credit records and then graduate to traditional loans. But bankers, such as Piyush Gupta, the head of Singapore-based DBS, are developing digital banking strategies, both in their home market and in markets where they wish to expand, such as India for DBS.
郭宇航等人否认他们在和银行竞争。相反，他们表示，他们的客户利用P2P贷款机构建立起信用记录，然后就有资格去申请传统的贷款。但是，新加坡星展银行(DBS)首席执行官高博德(Piyush Gupta)等银行家正在他们本土市场和想扩张的市场制定数字银行战略。以星展银行为例，该行想在印度市场扩张。
HSBC has an innovation committee studying new online models, the Shanghai executive says. Standard Chartered already holds a 10 per cent stake in Dianrong and could seek to buy more. But whether these institutions can change their lending and reliance on inflexible credit criteria is an open question.
汇丰驻上海的那名高管表示，汇丰有一个研究新在线模式的创新委员会。渣打银行已持有点融网10%的股份，而且可能希望增持。但这些机构是否能改变自身的放贷模式、改用灵活的放贷标准，目前尚无定论。
Meanwhile, regulators are embracing internet finance companies as well. At the moment P2P lenders are at least partly the product of regulatory arbitrage, but their status will soon change. By year end, they will have to register with the Chinese regulators and be subject to rules, even if they will still have more freedom than the banks.
与此同时，监管机构也在拥抱互联网金融企业。当前，P2P贷款机构至少在一定程度上是监管套利的产物，但它们的地位将很快发生改变。年底前，它们将需要在中国的监管机构注册、接受规则制约，尽管它们仍将拥有比银行更大的自由。
For the moment, at least, regulators at China’s central bank and the China Banking Regulatory Commission are thankfully allowing a thousand financial flowers to bloom.
目前而言，最起码有一点是值得庆幸的：中国央行和中国银监会内的监管人士允许金融业百花齐放。