TE||Emerging from the shadows
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导读
所以“废钞”和“电子支付”最后针对的只会是普通的民众，在他们原来就少的财富里，再往外“放血”，一榨再榨。当最底层的民众无法生存的时候，或许不一定会产生动乱，但是国家的生产力，制造力就要往上层逼近，毕竟总要有阶层是要活在底层被压迫的！
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音乐| 精读 | 翻译 | 词组
Emerging from the shadows
走出阴暗
本文英文部分选自经济学人Finance and economics版块
Narendra Modi wants Indian businesses, and citizens, to abandon informality.How is he faring?
纳伦德拉·莫迪(Narendra Modi)希望印度企业和公民放弃（不纳税的）非正规经济.那么他的表现到底如何呢？
WATCHING money drain from your bank account has never been so much fun. On WhatsApp, a messaging service ubiquitous in India, sending rupees is now as easy as posting a selfie. Set-up is a breeze, because all Indian banks have been corralled onto a common payment platform on which anyone, from Google and Samsung to local payment firms and banks themselves, can build their own user interface. Money zips instantly from one bank account to the other, without any need to set up a pesky digital wallet or download some new app. At least outside China, there is no simpler way to shift money today.
看着钱从银行账户里转走从来都没有这么有趣。在印度无处不在的即时通讯服务WhatsApp上，卢比的转账就像自拍一样简单。设置非常简单，因为所有的印度银行都聚集在一个共同的支付平台上。从谷歌，三星到本地的支付公司和银行，任何公司都可以在这个平台上建立自己的用户界面。钱从一个银行账户中迅速地转移到另一个银行账户中，而不需要设置麻烦的数字钱包（密码），或下载一些新的应用程序。至少除中国以外，没有比这种更为简单的转账方式了。
Whats App’s offering is being rolled out gradually. The number of transactions routed through the United Payments Inter-face (UPI), the system on which Whats App and the rest are riding, has soared from almost nothing in early 2017 to over 150m a month in January. On current trends, UPI transfers will overtake cash withdrawals from banks within weeks. Some 665bn rupees ($10.2bn) will have shifted hands—or phones—in the year to March.
Whats APP的这项服务正在逐渐推广。通过Whats App和其他应用程序所使用的统一支付接口(UPI)进行的交易次数，（UPI是whats app和其他应用所赖以生存的联合支付界面系统，其交易数额）已从2017年初的几乎为零飙升至1月份的每月逾1.5亿。按照目前的趋势，UPI转账数将在几周内超过银行的现金提款次数。截至2017年三月份，大约有六千六百五十亿卢比(合一百零二亿美元)通过手机转账。
UPI(Unified Payments Interface)是印度政府推出的统一支付接口，由印度国家支付公司(National Payments Corporation of India)主导发布，由印度储备银行管理的电子支付平台，用于支持银行账户之间的即使转账。平台为每个人提供一个虚拟账户，再根据PIN进行交易确认，彻底地将各个银行之间的账户结合了起来。平台发布之后，各大银行，电商平台，甚至科技公司都争先恐后地接入平台，意图抢占印度电子支付市场。
All this is good news for tech-savvy Indian citizens. It is even better news for the taxman. Electronic transactions, unlike those in hard currency, leave a digital trail that makes it harder to do business informally. Just as an Uber driver cannot hide his income in the same way as a cash-in-hand cabbie can, money routed through bank accounts is easier to track, trace and tax. That is helpful because pushing more of the Indian economy out of the shadows, where perhaps half of all activity takes place, and onto the authorities’ radar has been a central policy of Narendra Modi, the prime minister.
对于精通科技的印度公民来说，所有这些都是好消息。对税务部门来说，这更是个利好消息。与硬通货的交易不同，电子交易会留下了电子记录，使得非正式的业务变得更加困难。正如优步司机无法像用现金交易的出租车司机一样隐藏自己的收入。通过银行转账的资金更容易跟踪、追查和征税。 这有利于促进印度经济发展，印度大概有一半经济活动都在阴暗中进行，而让其走出阴暗曝光在政府的雷达下，也是穆迪政府的核心政策。
The taxman：the government department that collects taxes〔政府的〕税务部门，税务机关
Informality has long been the norm in India. Economists estimate that nine in ten workers toil in the grey economy (recent research from the finance ministry suggests the figure may be somewhat lower). Informal outfits, often small, employ two-thirds of all manufacturing workers, at far lower pay than in formal manufacturing jobs. The informal sector remains the employer of last resort. So Mr Modi’s claim that widespread formalisation would be akin to turning “an old civilisation into a modern society” is no overstatement.
非正规经济是印度经济的常态。经济学家们估计，有九成工人寄希望于灰色经济（近期财政部门的研究表明，这个数据可能稍微低一些）。非正式的机构规模通常比较小，但总雇佣工人数占了整个制造业的三分之二，而薪水远远低于正规的制造业岗位。这个非正规行业仍然是最后的雇主。所以，莫迪总理所主张的普及正规化配置毫不夸张，它将类似于将一个古老的文明转变成现代社会。
As so often in India, data are patchy. But Mr Modi can claim some success. A new Goods and Service Tax (GST) introduced in July has boosted the number of firms registered to pay indirect taxes by 50%, to nearly 10m. This has become the most serious challenge to those looking to do business under the radar. It subsumed a plethora of nationwide and state taxes adding up to 40% of India’s total take. A sort of value-added tax, it compels business to declare both their purchases and their sales if they are to qualify for tax refunds. Plenty if loopholes have been built in, and lots of features have had to be delayed because of IT problems. But the miseries of implementation and the nearly two decades of political bickering it took to get GST passed-should yield more gain than pain.
由于这样的情况在印度非常普遍，数据常常残缺不全。但是，莫迪总理声称可以取得成功。七月份印度政府推出新税种---商品及服务税（GST)，促使注册缴纳间接税的公司数量增长了50%，达到一千万。对于那些想要在政府监控下做生意的人来说，这是最大的挑战。它包含了大量全国范围内的税收和每个邦的税收，达到印度总税收收入的40%。作为一种增值税，它迫使那些想要获得退税资格的企业必须申报他们的采购成本和销售收入。由于IT问题，存在大量的漏洞而且很多功能不得不延迟上线。但是，经过将近两年的政治纷争才使得商品和服务税（GST)获得了通过，这一政策最终带来的收益应该会大于困难。
That is more than can be said for” demonetisation”, which in November 2016 compelled Indians to trade or deposit most of their cash holdings at banks before their notes turned to worthless pieces of paper. It let to the abrupt withdrawal of 86% of all bank notes from circulation. Only now is currency in circulation, which some see as a proxy for informality, creeping up to previous levels even as the economy has grown (see chart).
这比废除纸币更加高明，2016年11月，“废除纸币”迫使印度人在他们的纸币变成一文不值的废纸之前存放在银行。它让86％的纸币突然退出流通。 也只有到现在，流通中的货币（有些人认为这是非正式货币的替代指标）才随着经济的增长而逐渐上升到先前的水平（见图表）。
The costs were clear: India’s economy slowed markedly. Fans argued, though, that it jolted India onto a new, more formal track. But if so, that track has not visibly diverged from the one it was on before. Though there was a rise in the number of Indians signing up to pay income tax, the revenue from income tax is expected to come in at 2.3% of GDP, up only a little from around 2% in previous years. Even the jump in indirect-tax registrants because of GST has led to a relatively modest increase in revenue. But at least there is a sense that dodging taxes is less acceptable in polite society that it used to be.
这个代价很明显：印度的经济增速显著放缓。不过，支持者们认为，它将印度猛地推向了一条更加正式的新轨道。 但如果是这样的话，那个轨道还没有明显地偏离它之前的那个轨道。 尽管印度人登记缴纳所得税的人数有所增加，所得税收入预计将达到GDP的2.3％，与前几年的2％略高。由于服务税导致间接税登记人数飙增，税收收入相对温和上涨。但至少有一种感觉是，在上流社会中，逃税比以前更难被接受。
Saurabh Mukherjea of Ambit, an investment bank, argues that market forces have done more to nudge businesses to go formal than any government scheme has. Better infrastructure and logistics have made it easier for formal businesses to achieve economies of scale, and so to take on informal rivals whose sole competitive advantage is their ability to dodge taxes and regulation. Moderate inflation, due in part to the low price of crude oil, of which India imports oodles, has allowed for lower interest rates. That has made financing cheaper for formal firms, while informal ones have still had to make do with loans whose interest is measured in monthly, not annual, rates.
投资银行安比特（Ambit）的索拉布·赫穆克耶（Saurabh Mukherjea）认为，比起任何政府计划，市场力量更能推动企业正规化。日益完备的基础设施和便捷的物流使得正规企业更容易实现规模化经济，足够抗衡非正式竞争对手，而它们唯一的竞争优势无非是能够逃避税收和监管。温和的通货膨胀，部分原因是印度进口大量原油且价格低廉，这使得低利率成为可能。这样一来，正规企业的融资成本更低，而非正规企业却只能勉强贷到以月计息而不是以年计息的贷款。
But whatever edge a formal business might have gained is more than undone by a thicket of labour laws that prevent small firms from growing into mid-sized or big ones, which tend to be more formal. These have barely been touched since Mr Modi came to office in 2014. The fear of being shaken down by venal bureaucrats and taxmen remains a powerful reason to stay below the radar. As a result, only one in 20 Indian workers toil in firms that employ more than 25 people, compared with around one in four in China.
但是，无论如何一家正规公司所获得的优势都比废除复杂的劳动法要多，这些法律限制小型企业向更加正式的中型或大型企业发展。但自从莫迪2014年上任以来，这些问题几乎没有触及。担心受到腐败的官僚和税务人员的挤压，这仍然是小型企业保持低调发展的原因。结果，只有5%的印度工人在雇佣超过25人的公司上班，而中国的这个比例为25%.
Indians have everything they need to lead a formal life. Thanks to a financial inclusion drive launched by the previous government and enthusiastically continued under Mr Modi, nearly all have bank accounts. Hundreds of millions receive government subsidies for fertiliser or gas as digital payments, rather than as in-kind rations, which were often pilfered. As paying digitally becomes easier than paying in cash, India’s government should ask itself why so many citizens would still rather the authorities know nothing about them.
印度人有条件过上正式生活。由于前政府发起了金融融合政策，莫迪积极也推行，几乎所有人都拥有银行账户。数亿人领取了政府对化肥或天然气的数字支付补贴，而不同于以往的实物配给，那些物品常常遭受偷盗。数字支付比现金支付更便捷，印度政府应该反思为什么还有这么多公民仍然宁愿当局对他们一无所知。
翻译组：
Olivia，女，教育行业，经济学人爱好者
Meiling，女，机械贸易行业，经济学人爱好者
Lucia，女，翻译学硕士三年制，经济学人爱好者
校核组：
Damon，男，钢管工人，经济学人爱好者
Fiona， 女 ，教雅思的民工， 经济学人爱好者
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观点 |评论|思考
本次观点由金融民工Lulu全权执笔
划重点：单身
电视剧人民的名义里面开头有一幕，贪官赵德汉在自己的一处别墅当中，把钱堆满了墙，铺满了床，这带来的视觉震撼效果想必至今仍记忆犹新。可见对于手中有权，不断拿钱的官员来说，还是现金为王。因为通过转账等电子交易，留下的任何蛛丝马迹都会让他们承担更多的曝光在阳光下的风险。
印度阿三的穆迪政府一直将这样的反贪，再加上反恐作为政府工作重心，所以但凡有利于这两项工作开展的事项，穆迪政府基本是持支持态度的，当然也包括文章当中所说的电子支付。印度的电子支付在这两年可谓是得到了开挂式的发展，本土的金融科技企业也得到了国际资本的追逐，比如仅阿里巴巴和蚂蚁金服除了多轮投资印度的移动支付平台paytm，还技术输出“场景金融”风控技术。
这样的迅速发展还得益于政府的"匪夷所思"的措施，比如2016年11月，穆迪政府突然发布废钞令，500卢比和1000卢比面值的钞票从午夜起退出流通，不再是合法货币，作为政府打击猖獗的腐败和伪造货币行为的一部分。一夜之间，钞票变成了废纸，这也就是在开挂民族才能围观的事情，而且毕竟这已经是第三次了。从好的角度可以理解为政府的刮骨疗毒，带来的负面影响必然是影响经济发展，虽然是暂时的。移动支付平台就刚好抓住这个契机，准备在印度市场上风起云涌一番了。
有这么"给力"的政府支持，加上移动支付本身的便捷性，改变用户的习惯并非难事儿，想想支付宝怎么利用双十二的五折线下活动成功征服号称不会用智能手机的大爷大妈就造了。而一旦习惯养成，就坐拥印度这个仅次于中国规模的第二大市场(最大的人口红利)，从此走上巅峰。不过，这个市场目前也是n足鼎立，Reliance Jio领头的电信服务商；Paytm为首的第三方独立支付； 各家银行开发出自己的电子钱包;而且很难想象，在中国，滴滴出行会推出自己的支付系统，但是印度打车软件Ola也加入战斗阵营。
看起来热闹程度不亚于中国的共享单车市场，当然最后的结果基本也是可以预见的，烧钱后的寡头垄断。至于移动支付能够给印度的灰色产业链带来多少冲击，仍是任重道远。
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