世界穷人获益于移动支付平台

Campaigners have for years been battling to get theworld’s poor better access to banking, arguing thatsomething as simple as setting up a bank account and, better yet, providing credit can be themost effective tools to help people rise out of poverty.

多年来，活动家们一直在为了让世界上的穷人更好地获得银行服务而努力。他们指出，像开设银行账户、以及进一步提供信贷这样简单的事，可以成为帮助人们摆脱贫困的最有效工具。

But thanks to a rare confluence of technological innovations and new pushes in countriessuch as India, those efforts to encourage what the professionals call “financial inclusionmight finally be paying off.

现在，技术创新和印度等国国内的新推动力正难得地发生融合，得益于此，鼓励这种专业人士所称的“金融包容性的努力可能终于要成功了。

In a report looking at both the progress made and the government policies being adoptedaround the developing world, researchers at the Brookings Institution in Washington argue thatafter years of work that may just be the case.

在一份考察“金融包容性进展以及发展中国家政府所采纳的政策的报告中，华盛顿布鲁金斯学会(BrookingsInstitution)的研究员认为，在经过多年的努力之后，情况可能确实如此。

“Financial inclusion is really taking off, says Darrell West, director of the centre fortechnological innovation at Brookings and one of the authors. “I think we have reached atipping point.

“金融包容性真的在实现，布鲁金斯学会科技创新中心主任、该报告作者之一达雷尔韦斯特(Darrell West)称，“我想我们已经达到了一个临界点。

The study is not the first to identify progress. In April, for example, the World Bank releasedthe results of a 140-country survey that found more than 700m people worldwide had left theranks of the “unbanked in the past three years.

该研究并非是第一个确认该进展的。例如，今年4月世界银行(World Bank)公布的对140个国家所做调查的结果显示，过去3年中，世界各地有超过7亿人脱离了“无银行账户者之列。

The main credit for that progress goes to mobile phone-based payment platforms such asKenya’s M-Pesa, which have provided a way around often traditional bank bureaucracies andregulatory regimes in many developing economies.

该进展主要归功于肯尼亚M-Pesa之类的手机支付平台，它们提供了一条途径，可以绕开很多发展中国家通常情况下传统银行的繁文缛节和监管机制。

Their widespread use in some African countries has put the continent at the forefront ofefforts to secure banking services for the poor. Kenya topped the rankings of the 21 countriesBrookings researchers examined, with 75 per cent of adults now holding financial accounts ofsome sort, a 33 percentage point increase from 2011.

它们在一些非洲国家的广泛使用，使非洲处于帮穷人获得银行服务的努力的前沿。在布鲁金斯学会研究员考察的21个国家中，肯尼亚位列榜首，如今75%的成年人拥有某种金融账户，较2011年增长了33个百分点。

Among the things encouraging researchers is the fact that after years of being a largely Africanphenomenon, mobile phone-driven services are being launched in other regions wheregovernments are also loosening historical regulatory constraints on non-bank financial servicecompanies.

令研究员感到鼓舞的是，过去多年主要属于非洲现象的手机金融服务，如今正在其他地区展开，而这些地区的政府也在放松历史上针对非银行金融服务机构的监管约束。

In an increasing number of places governments are working with the banking industry andtelecoms companies to establish a mobile payment system aimed at those without bankaccounts — in Peru 70 per cent of its 22m adults, said the World Bank.

世界银行称，在越来越多的地区，政府正在与银行业和电信公司合作，面向那些没有银行账户的人——在秘鲁，2200万成年人中70%的人属于这类人——建立移动支付系统。