2020年金融科技趋势面面观：Facebook虚拟货币、亚马逊和千禧一代

在蒙托克举办的金融头脑风暴大会已经过了一个多月。《财富》杂志对会上透露的各类信息以及在采访高管过程中发现的重要趋势进行了梳理。

以下是我们所搜集的最引人注目的预测和主题：

1. Facebook的Libra加密货币可能会难产

Facebook在金融头脑风暴大会举办的前一天宣布了Libra项目，自然而然地也就成为了大会的一个焦点。但一个反复出现的怀疑论断给参与者的乐观主义浇了一盆冷水：这款加密货币真能和世人见面吗？Digital Group的首席执行官巴瑞·斯尔伯特在会场外向《财富》杂志透露：“发行Libra是一个令人振奋的事情，然而问题在于，它是否以及在什么时候发行？”

Circle的首席执行官杰瑞米·阿莱尔提到，如果一种稳定币并非与单一法币挂钩，而是涉及一揽子不同国家的货币，那么打造这类稳定币会遇到监管障碍和其他诸多复杂性。阿莱尔在另一个采访中对《财富》杂志说：“我觉得个人、企业和政府最终都得接受这件事情，因此，我们想看看Libra是否能够推出，及其推出后会产生什么样的反响。”

2. 大银行的境况没有那么糟糕

将自家公司Clarity Money销售给高盛消费银行Marcus的亚当·戴尔如今担任Marcus的产品负责人，他以其在金融头脑风暴会议上的精辟言论获得了不少关注。他说：“现在仅存在两类银行：一种是已经搞砸的银行，一种是并不知道自己已经搞砸了的银行。”

但他的雇主高盛似乎并不在这两类之列，而出席大会的首席执行官们所代表的其他大型银行亦是如此，这些银行在全球都有着庞大的规模，资产达到了数万亿美元。（如果对比金融科技初创企业以及互联网银行，我们会发现这些领域的领军企业每家也才积攒了不到数十亿美元的身家）。《财富》杂志的执行编辑赖新基直接向花旗的首席执行官高沛德转述了戴尔的言论，高沛德回答道：“如果你对此否认的话，那可就真是弄砸了。我想说的是，作为一家机构，我们绝对没有矢口否认这件事情。”他还指出，花旗如果还是安于现状的话可能就已经“完蛋”了，“但我们是一家有着200年历史的机构，曾经经历了多次重构，这也是我们当前正在做的事情。”高沛德还称自己是区块链的“坚定信仰者”。

参加大会开幕式的美国银行首席执行官布莱恩·莫伊尼汉还提供了一组生动的数据来解释自家公司不会落后的原因。他说：“我认为美国银行在区块链领域的专利比其他任何银行都多。”

3. 亚马逊可能会进军银行业

我的同事骆杰峰在展会上指出，“亚马逊有开设一家银行所需的所有条件。”其中的一个主要条件在于：它与客户之间有着紧密的关系。罗伯特·哈克特表示：“从一些消费心理来看，人们对亚马逊的喜爱远远超过了其对银行的喜爱。”

然而在大会上，Amazon Pay的副总裁帕特里克·高迪耶给这个观点浇了盆冷水：“我们有能力打造某项业务的事实并不代表我们就应该去做这件事情。”然而，他并没有完全否定亚马逊在遥远未来的某个时间进军银行业的可能性，也没有嘲笑“亚马逊只要自己愿意就可以组建银行”的这个理念。

第二天，有人问花旗的高沛德，如果亚马逊或其他大型科技公司打造一家有竞争力的数字银行，他是否会感到担心。高沛德表示：“我们经常被问到这个问题。我并不知道这些企业自身的抱负或意图，但我想说的是，在我们看来，这类事情并非是必然的，但也不会因此而轻敌。我们并没有轻视亚马逊，也必然不会轻视Facebook以及任何拥有数十亿用户的公司，我觉得我们有必要关注这件事情。”很明显，大型银行不会排除将亚马逊列为潜在竞争对手的可能性。

4. 千禧一代的净值正在膨胀

多年来，有关千禧一代的报道大都集中于其沉重的学费贷款负担，以及他们与前几代相比较为悲观的财务前景，因为其中有很多都毕业于在大萧条期间或前后。美国银行最近的一次计算显示，2018年，仅有16%的千禧一代有至少10万美元的存款。

然而在金融头脑风暴大会上，高管们则描述了一个不一样的千禧一代。Wealthfront的首席执行官安迪·拉什勒夫说：“他们并非一直都待在地下室吞云吐雾。”然后他补充说：“他们正处于其人生的财富积累阶段。” Wealthfront是一家智能投资咨询公司，其客户主要是千禧一代。

嘉信理财的首席执行官瓦尔特·贝丁格同时指出，每年中介公司会接纳数十万千禧一代，而且这些人占到了Schwab新客户数量的一半以上（53%）。这些人的平均净值？每户的家庭资产达到了35万美元，贝丁格补充道。“因此公司当前千禧一代客户的平均财富值已经达到了这个水平。”（财富中文网）

译者：冯丰

审校：夏林

Now that we’ve had a little more than a month to decompress from our time in Montauk for Brainstorm Finance, we’ve been reflecting on everything we learned and culling the key trends that emerged from our discussions with top executives.

Here are a few of the most salient predictions and themes we gleaned:

1. Facebook may struggle to launch its Libra Cryptocurrency

As Facebook announced its Project Libra the day before Brainstorm Finance kicked off, naturally it was the talk of the conference. But one persistent theme tempered attendees’ optimism: Skepticism that the cryptocurrency could actually get off the ground. “Libra is a very exciting moment when it launches—certainly the question is if and when it’ll launch,” Barry Silbert, the CEO of Digital Currency Group, told Fortune on the sidelines of the conference.

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, pointed to regulatory hurdles and other complexities involved with creating a stablecoin backed by not just one fiat currency, but a basket of various nations’ monetary notes. “I think that’s something that both individuals, businesses and governments will have to ultimately get comfortable with, so it’ll be interesting to see if Libra is able to launch and how that’s perceived,” Allaire told Fortune in a separate interview.

2. Big banks aren’t really all that screwed

Adam Dell, who sold his company Clarity Money to Goldman Sachs’s consumer bank Marcus and now serves as its head of product, made some headlines with his pithy comments at Brainstorm Finance: “There are only two kinds of banks— there are banks that are screwed, and banks that don’t know they are screwed,” he said.

But his employer, Goldman Sachs, didn’t seem to fall into either category, nor did the other big banks that were represented by their CEOs at the conference, with their vast global scale and trillions of dollars in assets. (Compare that to fintech startups and challenger banks, where even the leading companies have yet to amass more than a few billion each.) Fortune executive editor Adam Lashinsky put Dell’s comments directly to Citi CEO Michael Corbat, who responded, “You’re screwed if you’re in denial. and I would say as an institution we’re absolutely not in denial.” Citi would be “dead” if it stuck to the status quo, he added, “But we’re a 200-year-old institution that’s reimagined itself several times, and we are very much in that process today.” Corbat also described himself as a “true believer” in blockchain technology.

Bank of America, whose CEO Brian Moynihan opened the conference, also offered a telling statistic to illustrate why his company wouldn’t be left behind: “We have more blockchain patents I think than anybody else does now,” he said.

3. Amazon could come for banks

As my colleague Jeff Roberts put it on this show, “Amazon has all the ingredients to be a bank.” One main ingredient: Its close relationship with customers. Added Robert Hackett, “If you look at some of the consumer sentiment, people like Amazon way more than they like their banks.”

At the conference, though, Patrick Gauthier, vice president of Amazon Pay, threw cold water on the idea: “The fact that we can build something doesn’t mean that we should,” he said. Still, he didn’t entirely rule out a banking foray sometime further off in the future—nor did he scoff at the idea that Amazon could very well build a bank if it wanted to.

The following day, Citi’s Corbat was asked whether he feared that Amazon or another big tech company would build a competing digital bank. “It’s a question we get asked frequently,” Corbat acknowledged. “I don’t know their ambition or intentions per se, but what I would say is, we don’t take anything for granted and we’re not dismissive. We’re not dismissive of Amazon, I'm sure we’ll get to Facebook—anybody who’s got a couple billion users, I think you need to pay attention to.” It’s clear the big banks aren’t writing off Amazon as a potential competitor one day.

4. Millennials’ net worths are bulging

For years, the popular narrative around the millennial generation has been that their heavy student debt burdens and the fact that many of them graduated during or around the Great Recession would condemn them to a dimmer financial outlook than prior generations. At Bank of America’s last count, in 2018, only 16% of millennials had saved at least $100,000.

At Brainstorm Finance, though, executives painted a different picture of millennials. “They’re not all sitting in their basements smoking weed all the time,” said Andy Rachleff, the CEO of Wealthfront, a robo-advisor whose customers are primarily millennials. And, he added, “They’re in the wealth accumulation phase of their lives.”

Walt Bettinger, the CEO of Charles Schwab, meanwhile, said that hundreds of thousands of millennials are now flocking to the brokerage annually, and make up more than half (53%) of Schwab’s new accounts. Their average net worth? $350,000 in household assets, Bettinger added. “So the average millennial we’re winning has that level of affluence today already.”