寄生草莓的英文俱樂部

Timekeeper

THERE is a through-the-looking-glass quality to the blue-lit tunnel that leads into the headquarters of Klarna, a Swedish online-payments firm. And there is something back-to-front about the company itself. It is a startup firm that grew up in Europe, and is now seeking to expand into America—the reverse of the usual pattern. Unlike most tech unicorns galloping to expand their market share, it already makes a profit. Even more strikingly, it plans to move from an area of financial ferment(酵素)—mobile payments—into the sterile(貧瘠的；無菌的) old business of retail banking. Investors are giddy(頭暈；輕挑的) about its plans, however unusual: a funding round last year valued the firm, whose name is Swedish for “getting clearer”, at $2.25 billion, up by almost a billion on the year before.

一條兩旁都是鏡子，頭頂上有美麗的藍光照明的走道帶領我們走進 Klama 公司的總部，一家瑞典的在線支付公司的。而有一些後端到前端關於公司本身，與其他的企業不同，這是一家歐洲的新創公司，目前正在試圖把業務擴大到美國。不像大多數高科技獨角獸還在為擴大市占率奔走，它不但已經獲利了；更引人注目的是，它計劃將業務從發酵中的金融業- 移動支付，移往入無菌室般的傳統商業銀行零售業。去年一輪融資該公司的總值在 22.5 美元，在前一年增長了近十億。

Klarna’s business “is quite basic”, says Sebastian Siemiatkowski, its founder and boss. Some 65,000 online merchants have so far hired it to run their checkouts(結帳). Its main appeal, for both retailers and their customers, is the simplicity of its system. Shoppers do not have to dole out credit-card details or remember a new password. Instead, they can simply give an e-mail and a delivery address, and leave the payment to be sorted out later. (Klarna pays the retailer in the meantime, and bears the risk that shoppers will not stump up(掏腰包) in the end—something few other payment firms do.) Customers who have previously used one Klarna-run checkout are recognised when they visit another, further reducing the need to fill out online forms. All this hugely increases the “conversion” rate—the proportion of customers who actually make a purchase after putting an item into their online “basket”.

Klarna業務“都是很基本的” ，塞巴斯蒂安，其創始人和老闆說。大約65 000網上商戶用它來結帳，它的主要訴求客戶是為零售商和他們的客戶，使得其系統相當簡單，購物者不必提供信用卡詳細信息或記住新密碼，相反的，他們可以簡單送出一封電子郵件和一個投遞地址，以及後續需要支付的款項。 （Klarna 在此同時先行支付給零售商，並承擔購物者不付款的風險，很少線上支付公司這樣做），曾經使用 Klama 結帳的客戶在進行下一筆交易時無需再一次填寫在線表格。

Like many fintech(金融科技) firms, Klarna believes that its algorithms(演算程序) do a better job of identifying creditworthy customers than the arthritic(關節炎的) systems used by conventional financial firms. It relies on the e-mail and delivery addresses supplied, as well as the size and type of purchase, the device used, time of day and other variables. This not only allows it to bear the risk that customers fail to pay when Klarna bills them, but also to offer them extended payment(延期付款) plans, for a fee. These loans have higher margins than the cut-throat online-payment business—although the giants of the industry, such as PayPal, are experimenting with similar offerings.

如同許多金融科技公司，Klarna 認為使用演算法來做鑑定客戶信譽鑑定會比傳統的金融機構所使用的老舊系統來得好，它所倚賴的資料是客戶提供的 e-mail 、送貨地址、所購買物品的類型、款項大小，所使用的設備，以及購物的時間。這不僅使得它能夠承擔客戶不付款的風險，也讓他們能夠提供延期付款計劃。這些貸款的利潤會比已經進入割喉戰其他在線支付業務來得豐厚。該行業的巨頭，如 PayPal 也在進行類似產品的實驗。

Klarna handled sales of roughly $10 billion in 2014 (compared with PayPal’s $235 billion), generating $300m in revenue, all in Europe. (It has not yet made public figures for last year.) It handles 40% of online payments in Sweden. In 2014 it bought a German firm, Sofort, expanding its presence there. It thinks it can continue to grow in Europe, but its main focus now is America, where it launched in September.

Klarna 在 2014 年所處理的銷售額約100 億美金（PayPal的業務量 2350億美金），年收入 3 億美金全部都在歐洲，它處理了 40% 瑞典的在線支付。 2014年他收購了一家德國公司，Sofort，擴大在德國的業務。他認為自己可以在歐洲繼續成長，但他現在主要的焦點是美國，並在九月登陸。

Klarna has not been signing up American retailers as quickly as it had anticipated. But it hopes two global trends will speed its expansion. The more that online shopping moves to phones, the more pressing it is for all online traders to make their checkouts quick and easy to use, but still safe. Customers particularly detest typing in credit card numbers on their phones, especially if asked to do so in public—while riding a busy bus, say. Klarna reckons over 60% of its business today involves mobile shopping, compared with less than 10% two years ago. Some retailers, such as sellers of shoes and clothes, report an especially rapid shift to mobile.

Klarna 與美國零售商簽約狀況尚不如預期，但他希望兩個全球趨勢會加速他的擴張。網上購物轉移到手機，更迫切的是為所有網上交易者，使他們快速檢出，易於使用，但仍然是安全的。客戶不喜歡在電話中輸入信用卡號，特別是在公共場所，譬如說在繁忙的公共汽車上。 Klarna 估計其業務的60％以上是透過手機購物，兩年前此類型的購物則不到10％。某些貨物零售，如鞋和衣服的賣家，的轉移特別迅速。

The other broad trend is for shopping across national borders. Online markets, such as Wish.com, connect bargain( 特價商品)-hungry consumers in rich countries to producers of clothes, watches, toys or jewellery in, for example, China. Klarna works with Wish on European sales, letting customers pay for goods ordered cross-border only after getting them, which can take weeks. That reassures shoppers not ready to trust an anonymous Chinese T-shirt firm to deliver. Many sellers are appalled(受驚嚇的) by the prospect of having to comply with different countries’ financial laws, say on extending credit, so they readily outsource payments.

另一大趨勢是跨越國購物。線上市場，如Wish.com，連結了富裕國家中想要購買特價商品的消費者和製造商，如中國的衣服、手錶、玩具、珠寶廠商。 Klarna 在歐洲與 Wish.com 合作，讓客戶在取得跨國貨物之後才付款，雖然整個過程需要幾個星期，這讓購物者無需信任任何一個不知名的中國T卹公司。許多賣家對於不同國家的金融法律的感到困擾，所以他們很願意將付款業務外包。

Klarna, in contrast, is a glutton(貪食者) for regulatory punishment. In fact, it is entering the most regulated bit of finance: retail banking. It is licensed as a bank in Sweden, which allows it to collect deposits from all over Europe. Mr Siemiatkowski sees this as a cheap source of financing, but also as a big opportunity. Just like online shoppers, he argues, bank customers are desperate for a safe-but-simple mobile interface like the one Klarna offers in payments. The firm’s 45m users provide it with a big and growing pool of potential banking customers who already have an inkling of the sort of service it can provide. “In the longer term we need to reimagine what banks really are,” he says, sounding like a typical fintech boss at last.

Klarna，相反的，似乎是監管法令的貪食者；事實上，它正在進入金融規範最嚴格的區域：零售銀行業務。它在瑞典已被許可，這使得它能夠接受從歐洲各地的存款。 Siemiatkowski 先生將此視為一個融資的廉價來源，也是一個巨大的機會。他認為，就像網上購物者一樣，銀行客戶也尋求一個安全且簡單的手機界面，該公司現有的4千5百萬用戶為它提供了一個潛在的銀行業務客戶名單。

“從長遠來看，我們需要重新思考到底甚麼是銀行，”他說，聽起來就像一個典型的金融科技老闆。

批發銀行(Wholesale Bank)：批發銀行是一個相對於零售銀行的概念，屬於金融領域的名詞。西方銀行業將銀行業務分為零售銀行業務（Retail Banking）和批發銀行業務（Wholesale Banking）。批發銀行業務的主要客戶對象是大企業、事業單位和社會團體，其一般涉及金額較大。

零售銀行 (Retail Bank)：零售銀行 (Retail Banking)，是銀行之一類型，它們的服務對象是普羅大眾市民、中小企及個人小戶。零售銀行服務客戶通常是透過銀行分行、自動櫃員機及網上銀行等交往的。與之對應的是批發銀行(Wholesale Bank)。