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  3. Another milestone on the journey towards digital cash was passed on November

Another milestone on the journey towards digital cash was passed on November

游客2023-12-03  19
问题     Another milestone on the journey towards digital cash was passed on November 13th. That date marked the emergence from beta-testing in America of V. me, a "digital wallet" that holds multiple payment cards in a virtual repository. Instead of providing their personal details and card numbers to pay for stuff online, customers just enter a username and a password. The service is provided by Visa, a giant card-payment network whose headquarters is in the heart of Silicon Valley, close to a host of technology firms which would love to get their hands on a chunk of the global payments business.
    In the short term new technology is actually boosting usage of plastic. Smartphone apps often require users to enter their card details to pay for services. Firms such as Square and PayPal have developed tiny card readers that plug into smartphones and allow small traders using their software to accept payments cheaply. Ed McLaughlin, who oversees emerging payments technologies at MasterCard, reckons such developments have added 1. 2m new businesses over the past 12 months to the card firms’ list of merchants.
    But even if plastic cards eventually go the way of vinyl records, card networks should still prosper because they too are investing heavily in new technology and have several built-in advantages. Visa is betting its member banks can help it to narrow the gap with rivals like PayPal, for instance, which is part of eBay and has grown to 117m active users thanks in part to its use on the auction site. Over 50 financial institutions are supporting the launch of V. me, which accepts non-Visa cards in its wallet, too. MasterCard and others are also touting digital wallets, some of which can hold digital coupons and tickets as well as card details.
    Before long all of these wallets are likely to end up on mobile phones, which can be used to buy things in stores and other places. This is where firms such as Square, which has developed its own elegant and easy-to-use mobile wallet, and Google have been focusing plenty of energy. Jennifer Schulz, Visa’s global head of e-commerce, predicts there will be a shake-out that leaves only a few wallet providers standing. Thanks to their trusted brands, big budgets and payments savvy, one or more card companies will be among them.
    Card networks are also taking stakes in innovative firms to keep an eye on potentially disruptive technologies. Visa owns part of Square, which recently struck a deal with Starbucks to make its mobile-payment service available in 7,000 of the coffee chain’s outlets in America. Visa has also invested in Monitise, a mobile-banking specialist. American Express, for its part, has set up a $100m digital-commerce fund, one of whose investments is in iZettle, a Square-like firm based in Sweden.
    So far few have tried to create new payments systems from scratch. Those that have toyed with the idea, such as ISIS, a consortium of telecoms companies in America, have concluded it is far too costly and painful to deal with regulators, set up anti-fraud systems and so forth. Fears about the security of new-fangled payment systems also play into the hands of established card firms.
    Still, they cannot relax. Bryan Keane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, points out that rival digital wallets could promote alternatives to credit and debit cards, including stored-value cards and direct bank-account-to-bank-account payments. Big retailers in America have clubbed together to create their own digital wallet and are likely to prompt users to choose the payment options that are cheapest for the chains, by offering them incentives like coupons.
    Jack Dorsey, the boss of Square and a co-founder of Twitter, agrees that digital wallets will make the trade-offs between various payment options clearer to consumers and reckons this will force card networks to up their game.
    "They had a major innovation 60 years ago" he says, "and there have been very, very few innovations since. " Some in the payments world might quibble with that but one thing they can all agree on is that the spread of mobile payments will bring many more customers. MasterCard’s Mr. McLaughlin claims that 85% of commerce still involves cash and cheques. As mobile purchases take off, more of this activity will move online.
    The biggest prize of all lies in emerging markets, where a lack of financial infrastructure is hastening the rise of phone-based payments systems such as M-Pesa, which serves Kenya and several other markets. Visa has snapped up Fundamo, which specialises in payment services for the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets: MasterCard has set up a joint venture called Wanda with Telefonica, a Spanish telecoms firm, which aims to boost mobile payments across Latin America. The payments world is changing fast but the card firms are not about to let rivals swipe their business. [br] What conclusion can be drawn from the description of ISIS?
选项 A、The benefit that the card firms got from the failure of ISIS was temporary.
B、The expensive cost of new payments systems made ISIS go bankrupt.
C、As a consortium, it is hard to cooperate with regulators and other aspects.
D、The failure of ISIS speeds the replacement of all payment cards.
答案 A
解析 推断题。根据第六段第三句可知，人们对新式支付系统安全性的担忧正中当今支付卡公司的下怀。又通过第七段第一句可知，尽管支付卡公司因此得益，但他们并不能放松。由此可推断支付卡公司的确从伊希斯财团创建新支付系统的失败中得利，但由于数字钱包的发展势头强劲而不敢有丝毫松懈，所以他们的得利是暂时的，[A]符合文意，故为答案。通过第六段第二句可知，成本昂贵、难以处理与监管机构的关系以及建立反欺诈系统障碍重重等都是伊希斯财团失败的直接原因，不是由伊希斯事件得出的结论，故排除[B]和[C]；通过第七段第二句可知，数字钱包的迅猛发展加速了各种支付卡的更新换代，这与伊希斯财团的失利无直接的因果关系，故排除[D]。
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