YOUR HOME is about to become a department store. Of the 27% of American consumers who own voice-activated speakers, more than a quarter already use them to shop. You may soon start ordering groceries via a panel on your fridge or buying accessories through an interactive mirror in the bedroom. Social-media outlets are also after your money: before long, that red coat you liked on a friend’s Instagram page will be just a click away.
家即将成为百货商店。美国消费者中，有27%的人拥有有声控音箱，其中超过四分之一的用来购物。您可能很快就会用冰箱上的面板开始订购杂货，或者通过卧室内的互动镜子购买配饰。社交媒体也在追逐你的钱：不久，在朋友的Instagram页面上那件你喜欢的红色外套只需一点下即可买了。
The continuing boom in e-commerce—which is still growing at a breakneck 18% a year—is forcing speedy change on a once-staid sector: the invisible pipework that powers payments. On March 18th FIS, an American company which provides information technology to around 14,000 banks, agreed to buy Worldpay, a payments plumber, for $43bn including debt—the largest deal ever in the payments industry. It marks a sharp escalation in the battle for a market that BCG, a consulting firm, expects almost to double in size, to $2.4trn, between 2017 and 2027.
电子商务繁荣 - 持续以每年18％的速度增长 - 正在迫使一度沉寂的行业做出快速改变：不为人所知的支付渠道。3月18日，向大约14,000家银行提供信息技术的美国企业FIS同意以430亿美元的价格收购支付渠道Worldpay，这其中包括后者的债务——是支付行业史上最大一笔收购交易，标志着支付市场竞争的急剧升级。据咨询机构BCG估算，在2017年至2027年期间，支付行业的规模几乎翻了一番，达到2.4万亿美元。
Payment technology is already pretty nifty. When a shopper swipes her credit card at a till, the company providing terminals to the shop (the “merchant acquirer”) asks the lender that issued the card (the “issuer”) to confirm that she has enough funds. That electronic query reaches the lender—whether around the corner or across the world—in milliseconds. If the answer is “yes”, the shop has a guarantee it will eventually receive the money, and the shopper can take the goods.
支付技术目前非常先进。消费者在收银台刷信用卡时，向商店提供终端的企业（“商家收单机构”）要求发行卡的贷方（“发行人”）确认消费者有足够的资金。电子查询抵到达到贷方 - 无论是在拐角处还是在世界范围内 - 的速度是以毫秒为单位的。如果答案是“是”，则商店保证最终会收到货款，消费者能带走商品。
The acquirer usually requests funds from card issuers only at the end of the day, after the shop submits its full list of transactions. Payment networks, such as Visa or Mastercard, then move the money, which may take days to reach retailers’ accounts. They also set the complex rules by which the issuers and acquirers they licence must abide. For example, acquirers provide insurance: they repay customers who, say, have bought tickets from an airline that goes bust before they fly. They also store the granular data needed to withhold deposits or execute partial refunds.
在商店提交全部的交易清单后，收单机构通常仅在当天结束时向发卡机构申请资金。支付机构，如Visa或万事达卡，会将支付资金——可能需要几天才会付到零售商的帐户。他们还制订了他们许可的发行人和收购者必须遵守的复杂规则。例如，收单机构提供保险：比如说，消费者在起飞购买了破产航空公司的机票，收单机构会返还消费者机票钱。收单机构还会存储扣留存款或执行部分退款所需的类别数据。
This system was designed for a brick-and-mortar world. But e-commerce has spawned new payment methods, such as digital wallets, and is changing constantly. Websites and apps can upgrade their software daily; acquirers might do so every quarter or two, says Chris Jones of PSE, a consultancy. Companies dubbed “gateways” now act as multi-socket adapters, connecting acquirers to morphing e-commerce firms. “Digital storefronts” like Shopify, a software company, add another layer: they cater to small vendors, enabling them to create a sleek website connected to a gateway in minutes.
这个支付系统专为现实世界设计的。不过，电子商务催生了新的支付方式，如数字钱包，而且持续更新变化。网站和应用每天升级更新；咨询机构PSE的克里斯·琼斯（Chris Jones）表示，收单机构可能每隔一两个季度才这么做。称为“网关”的企业现在充当“多插槽适配器”角色，将收单机构连接到各式各样的电子商务企业。如软件公司Shopify这样的“数字店面”增加了新一层企业：他们为小卖家量身定制，让他们在几分钟内创建一个连接到网关的时尚网站。
Banks have been in retreat from this fast-evolving world. “They are like turkeys waiting for Christmas,” says Mark O’Keefe of Optima, a consultancy. Card issuers outsource most of their processing to technology providers like FIS. Merchant acquiring used to be part of banks’ domain, but it was never part of their core business. In the past decade or so many have spun them off. The financial crisis accelerated this. In 2010 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) sold Worldpay to Bain Capital and Advent International, two buy-out firms, for £2bn ($2.7bn) as a condition of the lender’s bail-out by the British taxpayer.
在这个发展快速的世界里，银行在退缩。“它们就像等待圣诞节到来的火鸡，”咨询机构Optima的Mark O'Keefe说道。发卡机构将大部分流程处理工作外包给FIS这样的技术提供商。收单商家曾经是银行独占鳌头的领域，却从来没成为核心业务。十多年以来，许多银行将这一块业务拆分出来。金融危机加速了这种做法。2010年，苏格兰皇家银行（RBS）以20亿英镑（27亿美元）的价格将Worldpay出售给贝恩资本和Advent International两家收购机构，而这是英国政府纾困这家银行的条件。
RBS may now feel a tinge of regret. After a £9.3bn merger with Vantiv, an American peer, last year, Worldpay is the world’s largest acquirer. It says it processed over 40bn transactions in 2018. Other non-banks, such as Global Payments, have also become giants (see chart). This is partly due to organic growth. Acquiring is more profitable than other processing jobs, which have become commoditised. It is also cheaper and faster to scale on the web: installing card terminals in-store requires labour and local presence. It helps that the volume of transactions, on which acquirers levy a fee, is rocketing, propelled by voracious spending in emerging economies.
苏格兰皇家银行现在可能有些遗憾。在与美国同行Vantiv实现93亿英镑的合并后，Worldpay在2018年成为全球最大的收单机构。该公司表示在2018年处理了400多亿笔交易。其他非银行机构，如Global Payments，也成为行业巨头（见图表）。原因之一是由于实质性增长。收单比其他可变现的处理工作更有利可图。另外，在网络上的扩展成本更低，速度更快：在门店内安装刷卡终端需要劳动力和实地展示。在新兴经济体的大肆支出推动下，交易量正在急剧上升，而交易是让收单机构收取费用的，因此，它起到了推波助澜的作用。
Mergers, often orchestrated by private-equity firms, have consolidated parts of the industry. Acquirers have bought gateways; big technology providers have snapped up smaller software firms. But vertical takeovers by broad technology providers of payments specialists, like FIS’s of Worldpay, are new. The merger comes just two months after Fiserv, FIS’s main competitor, agreed to buy First Data, a rival of Worldpay, in a $22bn deal. Both mark the start of new phase of an M&A chess game. Pawns have been captured, but most big pieces still roam free. Since these play very perse roles, dozens of possible combinations make strategic sense, says Lisa Ellis of MoffettNathanson, a research firm.
通常由私募股权公司精心策划的并购巩固了这个行业的一些部分。收单机构收购了网关部分;大型技术提供商大肆收购了小规模软件机构。不过，广泛的支付专家技术提供商（如FIS对Worldpay的收购）的垂直收购则是新事物。在两个月前，FIS的主要竞争对手Fiserv同意以220亿美元的价格收购Worldpay的竞争对手First Data。两者都标志着并购对局进入了新阶段。典当物已是囊中之物，但多数的大件仍然在外飘游。研究机构MoffettNathanson的Lisa Ellis表示，由于这些典当物起到了多样化的作用，因此几十种可能的合并方式具有战略意义。
Vertical mergers will allow companies to cut costs, gain pricing power and cross-sell products—often to banks, their former owners. This will give them the firepower to go for the real target: establishing a truly global acquiring network. Multinationals such as Hilton or IKEA would love the simplicity of signing one single contract covering their payment needs worldwide. The Worldpay deal is a step in that direction. The firm, which focuses on Europe and America, should benefit from FIS’s existing relationships in emerging markets.
纵向兼并会让企业削减成本，获得定价权并交叉销售产品——通常是银行，即前东家。这将为他们提供实现真正目标的火力支援：建立一个真正的全球性收单体系。像希尔顿或宜家这样的跨国企业会喜欢简单地签署一份涵盖全球支付需求的合同。Worldpay的收购交易是朝着这个方向迈出的一步。Wordplay专注于欧洲和美国，会从FIS在新兴市场的现有关系中受益。
Seemingly innocuous deals could precipitate the scramble. On March 11th PayPal, a digital-wallet pioneer now worth $119bn, announced a $750m investment in MercadoLibre, a Latin American e-commerce platform. Worldpay, which has ambitions in the region, was surely watching: PayPal uses First Data as its acquirer. FIS is already thinking about the next round. “It won’t surprise us that other companies come together,” says John Crawford of FIS. “We don’t expect it to be our last deal either.”
看似无害的交易可能会导致争夺。3月11日，市值1190亿美元的数字钱包先驱PayPal宣布投资7.5亿美元投资于拉丁美洲电子商务平台MercadoLibre。对拉美有野心的Worldpay肯定会关注：PayPal使用First Data作为收单方。FIS业已在考虑新一轮并购了。“其他企业走到一起并不让我们惊讶。”FIS的约翰克劳福德说, “我们也不认为这也是我们的最后一笔并购交易。”
编辑：翻吧君
来源：The Economist（March 23, 2019）
阅读·经济学人
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