金融科技领域的“好创新”与“坏创新”

The etymology of “innovation” goes back to the 1540s and the Latin word “innovatus” meaning to “introduce as new”. The root implies no judgment on whether the thing being introduced is good or bad. These days, however, innovation has positive connotations — at least if the sheer volume of government initiatives sponsoring innovation is anything to go by.

“创新”一词的词源可以追溯至1540年代的拉丁文“innovatus”，意思是“引入新事物”。从词根可以看出，该词对被引入的事物并未给出好或坏的判断。但如今，创新被赋予了正面涵义——至少从支持创新的政府倡议的庞大规模来看是如此。

But thinking of innovation in this way is naive. As any police officer will testify, criminals are among the most innovative people on the planet. And it is rare for their innovations to be deemed socially beneficial.

然而，以这种方式理解创新是幼稚的。正如任何一名警官都可以证实，犯罪分子是这个星球上最具创新精神的群体之一，虽然他们的创新极少被视为对社会有利。

Good innovation must therefore be differentiated from bad. And one area in which this is becoming abundantly clear is the fast expanding high-tech financial service industry, colloquially known as “fintech”. Fintech innovators boast their technologies are making financial services more convenient, more inclusive and more competitive, all the while bringing down costs.

因此，必须把好的创新与坏的创新区分开来。而在快速扩张的高科技金融服务业，俗称“金融科技”(fintech)，这一点正变得非常明显。金融科技领域的创新人士自诩他们的技术正在让金融服务变得更便利、覆盖范围更广、更具竞争力，同时不断推低成本。

But the spike in digital financial crime accompanying the frictionless payments systems these technologies promote suggests criminals may be innovating as quickly, if not quicker. For now at least, more fintech equals more “crimtech”. And that is a big problem for the sector as a whole.

然而，伴随这些技术推动的无障碍支付系统而出现的数字金融犯罪也在飙升，这表明犯罪分子可能在以同样快(如果不是更快)的速度创新。至少目前来看，更多的金融科技意味着更多的“犯罪科技”。这对整个行业都是一个大问题。

Of particular concern is the phenomenon of “transaction laundering”. Think of the cost savings brought about by e-commerce and mobile app services for the legitimate e-retailing sector and then apply them to the world of money laundering. Whereas an old-school money launderer would face the headache of managing a bricks-and-mortar front business to launder his illicit profits, today’s online criminals need only set up a bogus online website to achieve the same effect, or else partner — on a commission basis — with a legitimate e-retailer prepared to process their illicit transactions.

尤为令人担忧的是“交易洗钱”现象。想想电商、移动APP服务为合法的电子零售业节约了多少成本，再想想用它们进行洗钱结果会怎样。传统的洗钱者面临的难题是利用实体的掩护企业来洗白非法获利，如今的网络犯罪分子只需搭建一个假冒网站就能获得同样效果，或者以抽取佣金的方式与愿意处理其非法交易的合法电子零售商合作。

Such front businesses, financial security experts say, are incredibly hard for banks, acquirers and third-party processors to detect. All the more so when transaction laundering techniques split high-value transactions into many small ones across multiple fronts, in a way that makes them look legitimate.

金融安全专家表示，银行、收单机构和第三方处理机构很难发现这些掩护企业。如果交易洗钱技术将大额交易在多个掩护平台上分成许多小额交易(让它们看上去合法)就更难发现了。

Research by payments consultant First Annapolis from February this year estimated that traffic from undisclosed websites bearing illicit goods and services was now as high on average as 10 per cent of legitimate websites. Facilitating all this, it added, was the proliferation of payment platforms, payment facilitator models for quick client subscription, instant website creation technology, as well as inexpensive hosting.

支付咨询机构First Annapolis今年2月的研究估计，未被曝光的载有非法商品和服务的网站的流量，现在平均是合法网站的10%。该研究还显示，为这一切提供便利的是支付平台数量激增、供客户快速注册的便捷支付模式、快速搭建网站的技术以及较便宜的服务器托管费用。

With the costs so low, there are few obstacles to criminals seeking to set up their own transaction laundering fronts. Add identity fraud to the mix, and criminals might not even have to put their own reputation at risk.

由于成本如此之低，犯罪分子设法自建交易洗钱掩护平台几乎毫无障碍。如果再利用身份欺诈，犯罪分子甚至不必冒声誉受损的风险。

The fintech sector, predictably, is adamant the industry will be able to offer the solutions to many of these problems. But as Lisa Osofsky, a global regulatory and financial crime compliance consultant at Exiger, explained to me, the challenge remains one of trade-offs. More compliance by and large comes along with additional cost and inconvenience to customers. That in turn puts a heavy burden on those in financial services responsible for policing transactions, especially when they don’t consider themselves police officers.

可以想见，金融科技业会坚持认为，该行业能够为其中的许多问题提供解决方案。但正如Exiger全球监管与金融犯罪合规咨询顾问丽萨•奥索夫斯基(Lisa Osofsky)向我解释的那样，挑战依然是如何取舍的问题。总的来说，更多合规会带来额外成本，并给客户造成不便。这进而会给金融服务机构负责监管交易的人员带来沉重负担，尤其他们并不把自己当成警察。

“It’s very expensive to be the gatekeeper,” Ms Osofsky said. “Think of aeroplane travel, it’s the same sort of thing. There are always trade-offs with more security.”

“作监管者代价很高，”奥索夫斯基表示，“想想坐飞机旅行，这是一回事。为了更安全总得牺牲其他方面。”

For now, the popular “low-cost” solution remains outsourcing verification and identity checks to third-party innovators. But with the number of companies in this sector proliferating, the question is whose responsibility will it be to watch and verify the watchers?

目前，颇受欢迎的“低成本”解决方案仍是把验证和身份核实外包给第三方创新机构。但随着该行业公司数量的激增，谁来负责监督并验证这些监督者?