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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  64
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 can be inferred from the prediction of Jennifer Schulz?
选项 A、The future market will be a mixture of digital wallet firms and card companies.
B、Mobile wallets will dominate the payments world after market shocks.
C、Though some card companies survive, they will be replaced at last.
D、Mobile wallet firms finally win only because they have more convenient functions.
答案 A
解析 推断题。根据第四段第三、四句可知，珍妮弗·舒尔茨预测，市场将迎来一次大洗牌，之后仅会有几家电子钱包供应商胜出，一家或多家支付卡公司将在其中。由此可推测，未来市场将是电子钱包和支付卡公司并存的混合型市场，[A]符合文意，故为答案。文中并未指出混合型市场中哪类公司占主导地位，故排除[B]；根据珍妮弗·舒尔茨的预测，支付卡公司最终在市场上仍有立足之地，并不能推测其最终是否会被替代，故排除[C]；该段第一句指出，手机钱包有可能最终出现在移动电话上，它可以用来购买商店里或其他地方的物品。这彰显了其卓越的便利功能，但并不能由此推测移动手机钱包在市场上立足的原因仅限于此，[D]过于绝对，故排除。
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