本科毕业论文（设计）
外 文 翻 译
原文：
E-Finance: Current Developments, Issues, Impacts, and Future
As the growth of Internet broadens its scope, e-finance grows accordingly. As part of e-commerce, e-finance has its own unique characteristics. On one hand, the Internet offers convenience, price transparency, and broader access to information and lower costs; on the other hand, financial services are data intensive and do not generally need physical delivery of products. The combination of the two seems to give unique advantages to help e-financial services grow faster than other e-commerce sectors. The impact of Internet on traditional financial services can be categorized into price transparency, differential pricing, and bypass and disintermediation. Since there is no broadly accepted definition of e-finance, we tentatively define e-finance as the provision of financial services: Internet banking, brokerage, payment, mortgage and other lending, insurance and related services over the Internet or via other public networks.
Sato (2001) shows recent developments in e-finance. The growth of financial services is estimated to exceed one trillion dollars. According to one estimate, e-finance revenues will more than double in three years (Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, 1999). However, not all segments grow at the same speed in financial services. Among the segments such as brokerage, online banking, e-payments, life insurance, and investment banking, Internet brokerage grows the fastest. Online banking grows a little bit more slowly. E-payments, life insurance, and Internet banking hardly see any dramatic growth. However, some simpler financial service products might see potential growth in the next few years. They include online credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and car loans and leases; simpler insurance products such as car insurance, travel insurance, and home equity insurance. From an international
perspective, e-finance grows the fastest in the United States and Europe. Pacific region also grows at a quick speed, led by Japan, Singapore, and other countries in the region. Even though the e-finance leaders are in the U.S. and Europe, they also show different characteristics. U.S. e-finance is largely PC-based. That is caused by years of penetration of PC in the U.S. market. However, in Europe, both PC and mobile phones penetrate fairly well in the market. This is not surprising because Europe has the mobile phone leaders such as Nokia and Ericsson. European countries usually adopt WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology, allowing Internet banking and brokerage via mobile phones. This kind of banking is also referred to as “Martini banking”: “anytime, any place, from any access device”.
According to Mantel (2001), the first is product diffusion theory. Building on a new product diffusion theory, some studies cite a laundry list of barriers standing in the way of e-finance growth path. On the demand side, studies have cited customer resistance or inertia, lack of incentives, and lack of customer awareness of the innovation as obstacles to change. On the supply side, studies have pointed to the lack of clear standards, the need to overcome industry fragmentation, inadequate incentives among incumbents, and the presence of network externalities. This theory assumes implicitly that a significant portion of e-finance innovations are clear substitutes for existing services and that additional work by incumbent firms alone or in collaboration will lead to broad acceptance. A competing theory about the e-finance phenomenon is called new market development. The theory suggests that broader structural changes are underway, driven by technology, and these changes are blurring the lines between banking and commerce. While it is both natural and critical for incumbent firms to experiment, this theory suggests that innovations tend to unleash improvements that incumbents may not find valuable in the short-or mid-term. Some observers may suggest that incumbent firms in these industries do not understand their markets or are not adequately investing in the future. However, studies have found that incumbent firms, for purely profit maximizing reasons, may not want to choose to pioneer some of these innovations themselves, leaving other firms with different specialties to do so. In other words, such firms do not see “first mover” benefits. Each
of the above-mentioned theory can show why some segments are more inclined to fast growth, and some other segments will grow much slowly. The first theory will show that brokerage services will be much easier to move online, because the services are relatively simple. On the demand side, lower transaction costs and greater information transparency means more incentives for customers to join the service. On the supply side, relative low entry barriers push the incumbent firms to move to the online services quickly. Otherwise, the incumbent firms will face market share erosion. In the case of slow growth in e-money service, investment banking service and other more complicated financial services, entry barriers are higher (investment banking), inconvenient (complicated financial service), and insecure (e-payment service). Therefore, these segments show sluggish growth. According to the second theory, the fast growth of brokerage shows that the first mover benefits tremendously. First mover will be able to grab a large chunk of customers. Even though profit margin might erode in the short-term, the large volume from large market share will be more than enough to compensate the margin loss. From profit maximization point of view, brokerage firms will be able to identify the trends and move quickly. However, other e-financial services are not able to show the fast growth observed in the brokerage house.
As e-finance grows, many interrelated issues emerge. it shows that economic integration within and across countries, deregulation, advances in telecommunications, and the growth of the Internet and wireless communication technologies are dramatically changing the structure and nature of financial services. Internet and related technologies are more than just new distribution channel, they are also different ways of providing financial services. The related issues to e-finance are:
1. Safety and soundness
a) Over the long run, there may be less need for a financial sector safety net, including prudential regulation and supervision of banks. b) Authorities should be wary of extending guarantees to new deposit substitutes, as the moral hazard implications could be substantial. c) Over the short run, authorities could require nonfinancial corporations to provide payment services through bank subsidiaries.
外文翻译--电子商务的发展现状、问题、影响和未来
