万事达卡如何利用数字技术取代现金支付

万事达卡（Mastercard）希望世界上不再用纸币作为支付途径——不过这并不必然意味着要用塑料的信用卡付款。

万事达卡的可持续性执行副总裁沙美娜·辛格指出，如今全球有大约85%的支付交易通过现金完成。在美国，尽管刷卡或手机扫码是更加流行的支付手段，但仍有30%的交易依然采用现金支付。

在《财富》的最新一期《Balancing the Ledger》节目中，辛格表示：“从商业角度看，这确实是一大机遇。如果你的竞争对手是现金，而非其他支付公司，这会让你真正思考——如果你用数字技术颠覆现金的地位，对世界上的更多人而言意味着什么？”

这种想法促使辛格在2013年建立了万事达卡的包容性增长中心（Center for Inclusive Growth），她自己担任总裁。这项创举旨在让5亿没有享受过金融服务的人——其中许多只用现金——接触数字经济。

例如，到目前为止，万事达卡已经在印度等新兴市场推广了二维码。如此一来，接受支付的商户只需要一款移动设备或是二维码阅读器。辛格本人也在最近前往印度时测试了这项技术，第一次通过二维码支付了搭乘人力车的费用。她解释道：“二维码可以让商户享受到与杂货店或大型市场300美元的零售终端一样级别的技术。”

尽管万事达卡和辛格最初的尝试聚焦于发展中国家，但如今他们正在把那里获得的一些经验带回美国，帮助银行业不发达的类似社区。辛格表示：“实际上，我们认为这是某种逆向创新。”

譬如，万事达卡与纽约的一家非营利组织Grameen America展开了合作，后者致力于为无法通过其他途径获得借款资质的低收入女性企业家提供小额贷款。这些经营家庭小店或摊位的女性往往没有银行账户，只能接受现金贷款。辛格补充道：“你可能认为美国不会有这种情况，但实际上它比你想象得更加普遍。”

万事达卡与花旗集团（Citi）和苹果（Apple）合作为女性提供银行账号，以及用于数字支付以取代现金支付的设备。辛格解释道：“如果用现金的话，你只能和眼前的人，或是你足够信任、能把你的钱带走的人做交易。但这样局限性太大了。”借助技术升级，Grameen的贷款量达到了以前的三倍，女性拓展自身生意的能力也有所增强。辛格补充道：“我们以一种从未见过的方式看到了规模的扩张。”（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

Mastercard wants the world to stop paying with paper money—but that doesn’t necessarily mean paying with a plastic credit card.

Today, cash is used in roughly 85% of payment transactions globally, according to Shamina Singh, executive vice president of sustainability at Mastercard. While swiping a card or scanning a mobile app are more popular payment methods in the United States, cash still accounts for 30% of U.S. transactions.

“It really opens up from the business perspective a runway of opportunity, if cash is your competitor instead of any other payment company,” Singh says on the latest episode of Fortune’s “Balancing the Ledger.” “It starts to get you really thinking—if you started to disrupt cash with digital, what would that mean for more people in the world?”

That’s what drove Singh in 2013 to create Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth, of which she serves as president. The initiative aims to bring 500 million people without access to financial services—many of whom rely solely on cash—into the digital economy.

So far, for example, Mastercard has implemented QR codes in emerging markets such as India, so that all merchants need in order to accept payment is a mobile device or QR code reader. Singh herself got to test the technology on a recent trip to India, where for the first time she paid for a ride on a rickshaw (or small motor scooter) using just a QR code. “They allow the same level of technology that you would get from a $300 point of sale device that you might see at a grocery store or a big market,” she explains.

While Mastercard and Singh’s initial forays were focused on developing parts of the world, they are now bringing some of the lessons gleaned there back to the U.S., to help similarly underbanked communities. “We actually think of it sort of as reverse innovation,” Singh says.

For one, Mastercard partnered with a New York based non-profit, Grameen America, which provides small loans to low-income female entrepreneurs who wouldn’t otherwise qualify as borrowers. Often, the women—who run small mom-and-pop shops or stands—lacked bank accounts and could only accept the loans in cash. “You would think that we wouldn’t see that in the United States, but that’s actually more prevalent than you would think,” Singh adds.

Mastercard worked with Citi and Apple to provide the women with bank accounts, as well as equipment to conduct payment transactions digitally instead of in cash. “When you’re dealing in cash, you can only transact with people you can see, or people that you trust enough to carry your cash to another place. But you’re really constricted,” explains Singh. With the new technological upgrades, Grameen has been able to lend three times as much money—and the women have been better able to grow their businesses, she adds: “We’re seeing scale in a way that we hadn’t seen before.”