原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU1MDQwNTgzMg==&mid=2247491406&idx=1&sn=205f4fd9d12df911f9deea655ced028f&chksm=fba04ce9ccd7c5ff9aff1678564801e4942c16bf8cb56cf85debae737e33a7d261f994182ce2#rd
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导读
感谢思维导图作者
Tracy,女,设计爱好者,推理烧脑粉
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听力|精读|翻译|词组
Credit where it’s due
信贷的最佳去处
英文部分选自经济学人20200815期Leaders版块
Microfinance
小额金融
Credit where it’s due
信贷的最佳去处
注:credit where it is due原意为实至名归,此处意思是贷款的最佳去处
Lending to the poor will not end poverty, but it is more essential than ever
向穷人提供借款不会消除贫困,但它比以往任何时候都更加关键
注:
ESSENTIAL OR VITAL? 用 ESSENTIAL 还是 VITAL?These words have the same meaning but there can be a slight difference in tone. Essentialis used to state a fact or opinion with authority. Vitalis often used when there is some anxiety felt about sth, or a need to persuade sb that a fact or opinion is true, right or important. Vitalis less often used in negative statements. 以上两词意义相同,但语气稍有区别。essential 用以说明事实或表明权威意见,vital 常用于对某事感到急迫或需要使人信服某一事实或意见确实、正确或重要等情况。vital 较少用于否定句:◆ It was vital to show that he was not afraid. 最重要的是要表现出他毫无畏惧。◆ Money is not vital to happiness.
Across the developing world vast numbers of people have lost their jobs or seen their incomes fall. Many are being forced to sell their meagre belongings to pay for food. Ideally state handouts would plug the gap in their finances, but in many countries the public coffers are empty. Often people are too poor a credit risk, or live too remotely, to get help from banks. Microcredit, a form of lending tailored to them, should be part of the answer, but the industry is flunking one of its biggest tests.
在发展中国家,大量的人已经失业或收入下降。许多人被迫卖掉他们微薄低廉的物品来购买食物。理想情况下,政府的救济金可以填补他们的财务缺口,但在许多国家,国库已空。人们常常因信用风险太差,或生活在偏远的地方而无法从银行获得帮助。 作为为这些人量身定制的一种贷款形式,小额信贷本应是一种解决方案,但是这个行业正面临最大考验。
In the 1990s and 2000s microcredit was one of the next big things in development finance. In 2006 Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, won the Nobel peace prize. The industry’s champions developed a grand ambition. Letting the poor borrow and invest, they argued, would unleash their inner entrepreneur and allow them to earn their way out of poverty. A new model emerged. Instead of demanding collateral, which few poor people have, loan officers judged creditworthiness by assessing expected income. Lending often went to groups of people, who knew and monitored each other better than banks could. That also saved officers time and hassle, creating efficiencies that enabled clients to borrow small sums at affordable rates.
在20世纪90年代和21世纪初,小额信贷成为未来金融发展的重要领域之一。2006年,孟加拉乡村银行及其创始人穆罕默德·尤努斯获得诺贝尔和平奖。该行业的领军人物有着远大的抱负。他们认为,让穷人借贷和投资,将释放他们内在的企业家精神,并让他们摆脱贫困。继而,一种新的模式出现了。信贷人员通过评估预期收入来判断信用度,而不是要求穷人提供很少拥有的担保品。贷款常常流向这样一群人:他们比银行更了解彼此,更好地互相监督。这也节省了信贷人员的时间和麻烦,提高了效率,使客户能够以负担得起的利率借入小额贷款。
Today the lending portfolios of microfinance institutions (MFIS) are worth a combined $124bn. But the industry is in trouble. Covid-19 is straining its finances. Repayments, usually done in cash and in person, have plummeted, yet the banks and investors which provide the MFIS with funds still expect money. A crunch looms. More than two-thirds of MFIS have cut lending, often by at least half. Nearly one-third do not have enough cash to meet outflows this quarter. If only this were the industry’s only problem. Compounding it is a set of deeper, longer-standing issues that have begun to undermine its reputation for efficiency and probity .
如今,小额金融机构(MFIS)的贷款组合价值总计1240亿美元,但该行业却陷入困境。2019新冠肺炎造成其财务紧张。通常以本人亲自完成的现金还款大幅下降,但向小额信贷机构提供资金的银行和投资者仍在期望获利。危机迫在眉睫。超过三分之二的小额金融机构削减了至少一半的放贷。近三分之一没有足够的现金来满足本季度的资金外流。如果这是行业唯一的问题就好了。一系列深层次、长期存在的问题使其雪上加霜,这些问题已经开始损害其效率和廉洁的声誉。
As the industry has grown in size it has also grown in complexity. From insurance to leasing, a lengthening suite of services has turned microcredit into microfinance, adding new players to the fray. A mishmash of regulators have struggled to keep up. Patchy regulation and lots of loopholes have become a serious problem as the industry’s high repayment rates—well above 90% on average—have lured for-profit lenders, some of which demand land titles as collateral, charge extortionate rates and use heavy-handed tactics to collect payments. From Congo to Kosovo, scandals have surfaced.
随着行业规模的扩大,其复杂性也随之增加。从保险到租赁,不断扩展的服务组合已将小额信贷转变为小额金融,吸引了新竞争者的加入。混乱的监管机构难以跟上(行业发展的脚步)。零散的监管和大量漏洞已成为一个严重的问题,因为该行业的高还款率(平均高于90%)吸引了以营利为目的的放款人,其中一些人要求以土地所有权作为抵押,收取高额利息,并采取粗暴手段收取款项。从刚果到科索沃,丑闻层出不穷。
An expanding body of academic research suggests that microfinance consistently falls short of its boosters’ admittedly high expectations. Among the economists who have plucked at its laurels are last year’s Nobel prize winners, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. They and others have found that its effects on investment, revenue and consumption are small and uncertain. The result is waning interest in the industry from blue-chip investors and donors.
越来越多学术研究表明,小额金融始终未能达到其最初设计者支持者提出的高度期望,去年获得诺贝尔奖的经济学家,阿比吉特·班纳吉(Abhijit Banerjee)和埃丝特·杜夫洛(Esther Duflo)在小额金融研究上最为权威。他们和其他学者发现,小额金融对投资、收入和消费的影响很小且不确定。结果是,蓝筹投资者和捐助者对该行业的兴趣正逐渐减弱。
The timing is terrible. People use MFIS for a variety of needs, from buying goods to helping relatives. What matters is less what the funds are spent on than households’ and firms’ ability to smooth their income and outgoings over time, which is particularly important when bad news, or a bad season—or a pandemic—strikes. Without microcredit, covid-19 means more people in desperate situations will turn to loan sharks and pawnbrokers, at the risk of falling into debt spirals.
时机太糟糕了。人们使用小额金融机构的贷款来满足从购买商品到帮助亲戚的各种需求。重要的不是借贷资金被用于哪种需求,而是家庭和公司平衡长期收支的能力。特别是在坏消息,亦或是歉收、流行病等来袭时,这样的能力显得尤为重要。没有小额信贷,新冠疫情意味着更多处于绝境的人将转向高利贷者和典当行,并可能因此陷入债务漩涡。
What to do? In the short term, viable MFIS need support. Donors and investors should consider moratoriums, reschedulings or injecting capital. Nearly half of MFIS say they have not had any discussion with funders yet. Supervisors may need to loosen reserve requirements to provide breathing space. Forbearance with struggling clients should be tolerated, as long as MFIS sketch out a path back to normal for when the pandemic is over.
要做些什么呢?短期内,能够独立生存的小微信贷机构需要得到帮助。捐助者和投资者应当考虑暂停偿付、延期偿还或者注入资金。将近一半的小微信贷机构称他们还未与投资者有过任何的讨论。监管者可能需要放松存款准备金的要求以提供喘息的机会。只要小微信贷机构拟定好计划能够在疫情结束时回归正轨,那么对苦苦挣扎的客户予以宽容是应该被接受的。
注:
The reserve requirement is the total amount of funds a bank must have on hand each night. 存款准备金
In the longer term governments need to crack down on predatory lending and make rules more consistent and uniform. That will prevent vulnerable people from being exploited and also help restore confidence in legitimate microlending firms. Calibrating regulation is not easy, but some obvious measures include better information-sharing, so MFIS know what they are doing and people can shop around; an obligation to properly assess borrowers’ ability to repay; transparency on rates and fees; protection against harassment; and credible grievance mechanisms, advertised in information campaigns. For governments battling deep recessions microfinance may seem a sideshow. But all MFIS together have 140m customers, so nursing the industry back to health will give a big bang for the buck.
长期来看,政府需要严厉打击掠夺性贷款,并且使规章制度更加稳定和统一。这样一来将能够防止弱势人群被剥削并且也有助于恢复人们对合法小微信贷公司的信心。矫正监管并不容易,但是可采取一些显而易见的措施,包括:更好的共享信息,让小微信贷机构知道他们在做什么,并且人们也可以货比三家;履行适当评估借款人偿还能力的义务;利率和收费的透明化;防止骚扰;以及宣传活动中提及的可信的申诉机制。对于正在与严重衰退作斗争的政府来说,小微信贷可能只是一个次要问题。但是所有的小微信贷机构加起来有1.4亿客户,因此让这个行业恢复健康发展将会带来巨大的收益。
注:A grievance mechanism is a formal, legal or non-legal complaint process that can be used by individuals, workers, communities and/or civil society organisations that are being negatively affected by certain business activities and operations.申诉机制
Bang for your buck: better value for the money you spend or the effort you put in to sth钱花的合算;所作的努力值得
翻译组:
Sylvia,女,爱健身的小翻译,经济学人粉儿
Melody,女,咨询搬砖逐渐熟练工,经济学人粉丝儿
Mai, 男,经济学博士,世界那么大,我想活得久一点
校对组:
Neil, 男,外贸民工,经济学人铁粉
Wesley,男,英语老师,经济学人铁粉
Hannah,女,英语教书匠,经济学人粉丝
Carole,女,经济硕士,在成为经济学人铁粉的路上
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观点|评论|思考
本次感想
VeRy,男,电气民工,经济学人资浅爱好者
这几天幼小衔接班结束了,空余时间便多起来了,于是陪着女儿听故事,恰好听到了《威尼斯商人》。女儿并没有为其中的忠贞爱情所感动,只是提了两个问题:为什么欠钱的人可以通过这种坏办法来不还钱、为什么不是欠钱的人自己取肉给威尼斯商人。
我对这两个看似淳朴,却暗藏玄机的问题一筹莫展了。虽然我很早以前也思考过这两个问题,但是似乎我所得到的正确答案并不是那么显而易见并且理所当然的正确,其中包含的却是目前人们深恶痛绝的种族歧视等等之类的不能言语之论。
第二个问题似乎走的是程序流程正确与否的这条路,所以这不是一个很能够展开讨论的问题,而仅仅需要去考究当时程序上的要求而已,所以我就此略过,我想仔细谈谈第一个问题,至少不是从讽刺犹太人贪婪的角度。
从钱成为货币的那一刻起,我想就从来没有过每一个人都拥有足够、合适的数量(若当真如此了,钱似乎也就没有了存在的意义),所以我武断地认为那个时候就有了借钱和还钱的故事了。倘若每个借钱的人都是和我一样善良,按时按额归还(京东白条和花呗可以替我作证)的话,自然接下来的故事就变得乏味和平淡了,也就没有了吸引力。但总有人会有些小聪明,总有人会遇到突发意外,所以讨债这个职业我相信也是很快就诞生了。
千百年来,虽然变化万千,但是借钱还钱中的把戏就如同我们繁衍后代一般,虽花样繁多,但本质却无法改变。去年我在的公司大老板就因为七个瓶盖八个瓶的这种古老骗钱法术失灵而将两个上市公司的股份被银行冻结,至今仍未解冻。但公司与个人还是有本质区别的,我想这就是那些构思出公司这种形式最大的流氓行为,公司借钱不还最多就是老板赖倒在地上,假装口吐白沫,然后拍拍屁股告诉债主,我们破产了,自己家里的钱丝毫不受影响,所以我周围那些老板开公司的主要目的就是将银行贷款如何转变成个人口袋里的钱,原因就在于此。
但现在柬埔寨的情况显然属于后者,个人的借贷,这就比较残酷了,我们当然也有类似的情况:房贷。我们无法模仿老板口吐莲花,装疯卖傻,因为一旦你这么做了,银行二话不说直接将房子回收(尽管它一百个不愿意这么做),我们只能天桥下相聚了。除非你光脚不怕穿鞋,但是似乎这种人也很难贷到比较高额的款。
所以贷给个人的款基本都是可靠的(尤其是国内的善良百姓),除非发生了变故,意料之外的变故,否则人吃人的金融游戏(只是每个月喝你点血,不会让你死去,毕竟连畜生都懂得不能杀鸡取卵)还是会快快乐乐地循环下去。但倘若真的发生这种意外了,我想债主及时的止损还是必然的,没人会管借钱的人接下去的生活如何继续,将损失最小化是债主的唯一目标。
然后开始新的一轮。有人问到什么是个头呢?其实很简单,因为最终的可抵押的实物只能是土地和黄金(不要再被钻石骗了,醒醒吧,女人!!钻石不值钱的!!),黄金不会变,所以当土地的主人改变时,那一切债务都将烟消云散,重头来过,这个可怕且美好的场景,我已经描述过一番了。
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