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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  9
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] Which of the following best explains the competition between digital wallet and payment card?
选项 A、Most commerce still involves cash and cheques, so payment cards are hard to remove.
B、Phone-based payments systems such as M-pesa will spread throughout the world.
C、The joint ventures combining the innovative firms with card firms will occupy the market all over the world.
D、Though mobile payments will attract a huge market share, the card firms are not about to give up the market.
答案 D
解析 推断题。根据第九段第一、二句可知，在一些经济相对落后的新兴市场，手机支付业务已经迅速崛起；又根据第九段最后一句可知，虽然支付界变幻莫测，但支付卡公司并不打算将自己的业务拱手相让。由此可推测，在未来移动业务将覆盖全球，但支付卡公司仍会力争市场份额，[D]符合文意，故为答案。根据第八段最后两句可知，虽然现阶段85％的商业活动仍然涉及现金和支票，但随着移动购买业务的飙升，更多这类的商业活动将依托网络运营。由此可推测，未来支付卡的市场地位将会动摇，故排除[A]；根据第九段第一、二句可知，由于新兴市场缺乏金融基础设施，所以基于手机的支付系统如“移动钱包”在肯尼亚等其他市场迅速崛起，但这并不代表世界范围内的情况都与肯尼亚等地的新兴市场类似，故排除[B]；同样根据这两句可知，合资企业的成立适应了拉丁美洲等新兴市场的需求，并不能由此推测其也适应于世界其他地区，故排除[C]。
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