市场数据显示，去年，中国移动支付的规模是美国的近50倍。由此可见，在这个被视为进入“金融科技”生态系统的一道门户的市场，中国互联网公司拥有强大的地位。

　　The rise of Chinese mobile payments has been driven by the explosive growth of online shopping as well as internet financial services such as peer-to-peer lending and online money market funds. More than half of all mutual funds in China are now sold online, up from only 5 per cent in 2012.

　　中国移动支付的流行，得益于在线购物以及网贷、在线货币市场基金等互联网金融服务的爆炸性增长。如今中国超过一半的共同基金是在网上发售的，2012年这个比例仅为5%。

　　Last year was also a turning point for the use of online payments at physical retailers, including supermarkets, restaurants and clothing shops. Starbucks announced in January that it would begin accepting WeChat Pay — the payments service linked to Tencent’s ubiquitous mobile messaging app — at its China stores. Growth was also robust in 2016 in online to offline services such as ride hailing and food delivery apps that customers pay for through via platforms.

　　去年也是超市、餐厅和服装店等实体零售商使用在线支付的一个转折年。1月，星巴克(Starbuck)宣布其中国门店将开始接受微信支付(WeChat Pay)，这是腾讯(Tencent)被广泛使用的移动消息应用“微信”所包含的支付服务。去年，线上到线下服务也增长强劲，如叫车和送餐应用，在这类服务中，消费者通过平台支付。

　　“Digital payment platforms remain a critical part of the underlying fintech infrastructure in China but are also an important source of transaction and financial data that is increasingly being leveraged by the payment companies for new fintech platforms, products and services,” said Zennon Kapron, principal at Kapronasia, a Shanghai-based fintech consultancy.

　　总部位于上海的金融科技咨询公司Kapronasia的负责人曾农?考普龙(Zennon Kapron)表示：“数字支付平台仍然是中国金融科技基础设施中的重要组成部分，也是交易和金融数据的一个重要来源，支付公司正越来越多地把这些数据用于新的金融科技平台、产品和服务。”

　　The value of Chinese third-party mobile payments more than tripled to Rmb38tn ($5.5tn) in 2016, according to estimates by iResearch in China. WeChat Pay and Alipay, the payment service operated by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group, dominate the market. In the US, mobile payments rose 39 per cent to $112bn, according to global firm Forrester Research, with the market dispersed among rival groups including Apple, Google, Samsung and PayPal.

　　据中国艾瑞咨询(iResearch)估计，2016年，中国第三方移动支付的规模扩大两倍多，至38万亿元人民币（合5.5万亿美元）。微信支付和支付宝(Alipay)在该市场占据主导地位，后者是阿里巴巴集团(Alibaba Group)旗下蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)运营的支付服务。而根据全球研究机构Forrester Research的数据，美国移动支付规模增长39%，至1120亿美元，苹果(Apple)、谷歌(Google)、三星(Samsung)和PayPal等共同瓜分了市场。

　　China’s lead over the US in mobile payments is also the result of the lack of other viable options for non-cash payments. Credit card penetration in China is small compared to that of developed markets, while online payments with debit cards are cumbersome — usually requiring authentication through a combination of SMS messages, USB dongles and random code generators. By contrast, payment with Alipay or WeChat is much more streamlined and requires only the scan of a QR code from a retailer’s point-of-service terminal or a smartphone.

　　中国在移动支付方面领先于美国，也是缺乏其他可行的非现金支付方式的结果。与发达国家相比，中国的信用卡普及率较低，而用借记卡进行在线支付较为繁琐，通常需要通过短信、U盾和随机密码等多重认证。相比之下，用支付宝或微信进行支付要简单得多，只需要从零售商服务点终端或智能手机扫描一下二维码即可。

　　“China’s rapid adoption of proximity payments is in part thanks to its late-mover advantage — unlike the US and other regions, China does not have a strong entrenched credit card culture. In effect, China has jumped directly from cash to mobile payments,” market research firm eMarketer said in a report.

　　市场研究机构eMarketer在一份报告中称：“近端支付在中国快速得到应用，一定程度上得益于其后发优势——与美国和其他地区不同，中国没有深厚的信用卡文化。实际上，中国直接从现金支付跳到了移动支付。”

　　Beyond the revenue earned directly from processing fees, the dominance of China’s mobile payments market by Alibaba’s Ant Financial and Tencent gives them access to valuable user data that can be used for everything from credit ratings to targeted advertising to product development.

　　除了直接赚取手续费收入，蚂蚁金服与腾讯在中国移动支付市场占据主导地位，也有利于它们获取宝贵的用户数据，这些数据可以用于很多方面，从信用评级到定向广告以及产品开发。

　　However, the eye-catching transaction value of Chinese mobile payments partly reflects payments that do not necessarily correspond to real economic activity.

　　然而，中国移动支付市场引人注目的交易金额中，有一部分支付与实际经济活动并不相关。

　　During the recent Spring Festival holiday for example, friends and relatives traded “red envelopes” in auspicious amounts such as 88, which pronounced in Mandarin sounds like “get rich”, and 520, which sounds like “I love you”.

　　例如，在刚刚过去的春节假期，亲朋好友之间会互相发内含88（在普通话里听起来像“发财”）或520（听起来像“我爱你”）等吉利数字的“红包”。

　　While these red envelopes are used to make actual cash gifts, they are often exchanged back and forth as a form of socialising in which most users receive the same amount that they send. About 60 per cent of Chinese mobile payments took the form of person-to-person transfers in the third quarter, according to iResearch, although some portion of these are actually small businesses that have not set up a commercial payment account.

　　尽管这些红包被用来发送实际的现金礼物，但是人们往往会互相发红包作为一种社交的方式，大多数人收到的红包金额与他们所发出的红包金额相当。艾瑞咨询的数据显示，在去年第三季度，中国移动支付金额中约有60%是以个人对个人(P2P)转账的形式，尽管其中一部分实际上来自未开立商业支付帐户的小微企业。

　　“Originally this was just for holiday games, but after cultivation over several Spring Festivals, it’s now everyday behaviour,” said Li Zhefeng, payments analyst at iResearch in Beijing. “In the past, people used bank cards to do fund transfers, but now these transactions have shifted decisively to mobile phones.”

　　“最初这只是假期的特有游戏，但在经过几个春节后，如今这发展成了日常行为，”艾瑞咨询在北京的支付分析师李哲峰称，“过去人们用银行卡转账，但如今这些交易明显都转到手机端了。”

　　Yet in terms of mobile payment growth, China still resoundingly beats the US. Forrester expects US payments in 2019 to be 2.6 times their 2015 value; Chinese payments will grow by 7.4 times in the same period, according to iResearch.

　　不过在移动支付的增长方面，中国仍然完胜美国。Forrester预计，2019年美国移动支付总额将是2015年的2.6倍；而据艾瑞咨询预计，同期中国的移动支付总额将增长7.4倍。

　　In the US, in-person payments at offline retailers rather than mobile payments will be the biggest growth driver in the US. There and in Europe, near field communication (NFC) payments, which involve swiping a phone over a chip reader, are preferred to QR codes.

　　在美国，在实体零售商进行的面对面支付（而非移动支付）将成为最大的增长驱动因素。在美国和欧洲，近场通信(NFC)支付（把手机在芯片读取器上刷一下）比二维码更受欢迎。

　　Forrester found that half of all surveyed American retailers planned to install NFC terminals by the end of 2016 or had already done so. However, changing entrenched consumer behaviour is a challenge.

　　Forrester发现，2016年末，受访的美国零售商中有一半计划安装、或已经安装了NFC终端。然而，改变根深蒂固的消费者行为是一项挑战。

　　“Old habits die hard and, by all accounts, consumers are still reaching for cards rather than phones in the checkout lane,” Forrester wrote in its report.

　　“旧习惯很难改掉，根据各方面信息，消费者在结账通道仍然习惯去掏卡而非拿出手机，”Forrester在报告中写道。