经济学人下载:平安--变形计(4)

When large financial firms do develop systems in-house, they jealously guard them from competitors. Mr Ma has turned that notion on its head by transforming Ping An's technology division into a sales unit and profit centre. When the company developed its own cloud-computing tech for hosting its banking and insurance systems, it eventually turned the technology into products that now serve 630 banks and 100 insurers across China—a "software-as-a-service" model for banking that is often compared to what Amazon Web Services has done for website hosting. 

当大型金融公司在内部开发系统时，他们会小心翼翼地保护这些系统不被竞争对手发现。通过将平安的技术部门转变为销售部门和利润中心，马云已经彻底转变了这一观念。当时该公司开发了自己的云计算技术用于托管其银行和保险系统，它最终将这项技术转化为产品，目前为中国630家银行和100家保险公司提供服务——一种银行业务的“软件即服务”模式，这种模式经常被比作亚马逊网络服务为网站托管所做的工作。

Ping An's lending algorithms facilitated 47.4bn yuan in loans at rival banks in the first half of the year. That unit, renamed OneConnect, went public last year. Another, called Smart City, builds and operates internal systems for hospitals. Local governments in 118 cities buy Ping An's administrative technology. Its technology business, which includes the sale of cloud-computing services, generated just 4.5% of group net profits in the first nine months of 2020. But making the transition from financial institution to fintech means turning tech into a profit centre, says Leonard Li at Oliver Wyman, a consultancy. That tech turns a profit at all, rather than adding to its cost base, makes Ping An unusual. 

今年上半年，平安的贷款算法为其竞争对手提供了474亿元人民币的贷款。该公司更名为“金融壹账通”，于去年上市。另一个项目被称为“智慧城市”，为医院建设和运营内部系统。有118个城市的地方政府购买了平安的行政技术。它的技术业务，包括云计算服务的销售，在2020年前九个月只创造了集团净利润的4.5%。但咨询公司“奥纬咨询”的莱昂纳德·李表示，从金融机构向金融科技转型意味着要把科技变成一个利润中心。这种技术根本就能盈利，而不是增加成本基础，这让平安显得不同寻常。

Could elements of the model be adopted elsewhere? Many of the individual technologies developed by Ping An will soon be applied by western insurers; some are already talking about how to become "the Ping An of Europe". But wholesale fintech adoption will be harder in countries with stricter regulation on big data (and will probably become more difficult in China, too). Customers in America and Europe may also be more reluctant than those in China to buy insurance, health-care and wealth-management from one company. 

这种模式的元素可以在其他地方采用吗？平安开发的许多单项技术不久将被西方保险公司应用，一些人已经在讨论平安如何成为“欧洲的平安”。但在大数据监管更严格的国家，大规模采用金融科技将会更加困难(在中国可能也会变得更加困难)。美国和欧洲的客户也可能比中国的客户更不愿意从一家公司购买保险、医疗保健和财富管理服务。