中國互聯網企業激戰個人信用評分業務

Chinese internet companies are battling it out to create credit ratings based not just on citizens’ finances but also their social networks, raising fears that Big Brother could take up residence in consumers’ wallets.

中國互聯網企業正在展開激烈競爭，都力圖建立一個不僅依據個人財務狀況、也依據他們的社交網絡使用記錄來打分的信用評估系統，這引起了“老大哥”可能將主宰消費者錢包的擔憂。

Sesame Credit and other credit rating systems are responding to a glaring need for a credit rating database in a country that has seen rapid growth in personal credit cards, mortgages and online payments systems. About a third of Chinese own credit cards, up from 15 per cent five years ago.

中國的個人信用卡、按揭貸款和在線支付系統迅猛增長，爲此迫切需要建立一個信用評估數據庫，芝麻信用(Sesame Credit)等個人徵信系統應運而生。目前大約三分之一的中國人擁有信用卡，5年前這個比例是15%。

Pilot programmes have drawn on users’ social networks, purchasing behaviour and even time spent on the phone as proxies for creditworthiness, spurring American Civil Liberties Union policy analyst Jay Stanley to call the programme “nightmarish” and warn against its adoption in the US.

一些試運行系統把用戶的社交網絡、購買行爲，甚至使用手機的時間長短作爲信用評估指標。美國公民自由聯盟(American Civil Liberties Union)的政策分析師傑伊斯坦利(Jay Stanley)稱這些項目“像噩夢一般”，並警告美國國內不要採用這種做法。

However, in China, where civil rights lawyers are jailed, online postings censored and popular social networking apps such as WeChat monitored for politically sensitive content, citizens seem to have no such concerns. Rather they have turned to the internet in droves to brag about their high scores.

但在中國，一個民權律師被投入監獄、網絡言論遭到審查、微信(WeChat)等熱門社交媒體應用受到監控以過濾政治敏感內容的國家，人們似乎沒有這種擔憂。相反，他們競相在網上炫耀自己的信用分。

“No one on earth can stop me now!” exulted Rongrong, an e-commerce seller from Hangzhou who regularly posts her credit scores online. Sesame Credit rated her 813 out of a possible score of 950, or “credit extremely good”.

“現在地球上沒人能阻止我了！”杭州一個電商賣家Rongrong興高采烈地說。她定期在網上公佈自己的信用分。她的芝麻信用分是813分（最高分爲950分），屬於“信用極好”。

Early this year China’s central bank authorised eight companies to pilot credit ratings systems, setting the goal of creating a national system by 2020.

中國央行今年初授權8家機構試運行信用評估系統，目標是到2020年建成一個全國性評估系統。

The rival commercial ratings systems starting up now could set a precedent for how the national system functions.

現在開始運行的各個商業性評估系統，或許會爲今後全國性系統的運行樹立一個模板。

“It’s clear from the text that Chinese authorities don’t want a credit system that’s completely focused on finances; rather they paint the new system as a way of rewarding “sincerity” (and punishing insincerity) throughout society,” wrote Charlie Custer on tech blog Tech in Asia.

“顯而易見，中國當局並不想要一個完全基於財務狀況的信用評估系統；相反，他們把新系統描述爲一種獎勵‘誠信’（和懲罰虛假）的方式，”查理慍斯特(Charlie Custer)在科技博客Tech in Asia中寫道。

Nonetheless, he said he had found no evidence for the ACLU’s assertion that a person’s political posts, or their friends’ political activity, was used in assessing credit scores.

根據美國公民自由聯盟的說法，在中國，一個人在網上發表的政治言論、他的朋友從事的政治活動都會被用於評估信用分。卡斯特表示他沒有發現支持這種說法的證據。

Some western companies are reportedly trying to develop a credit scoring model based on consumers’ social networks.

據報道，有些西方企業正試圖開發基於消費者社交網絡的信用評分模型。

Among the rival Chinese systems are Sesame Credit, which rates users partly on their purchases through Alibaba’s online payment system Alipay, and China Rapid Finance, which draws on big data scraped from Tencent, the Chinese internet and gaming company.

芝麻信用和信而富(China Rapid Finance)是中國個人信用評估公司中的兩家，芝麻信用的一個評分依據是用戶通過阿里巴巴(Alibaba)在線支付平臺支付寶(Alipay)進行支付的購物行爲，信而富則利用從中國互聯網及遊戲公司騰訊(Tencent)得來的大數據。

One credit rating system trialled by smartphone maker Xiaomi’s financial services arm gives Chinese teenagers a new excuse to be on the phone all the time. It assesses credit based on guidelines including the users’ finance record, use of Xiaomi apps and community forums, and “frequent use of Xiaomi phones”.

智能手機廠商小米(Xiaomi)旗下金融服務機構正在試驗的一個信用評估系統，給了中國年輕人一個長時間使用手機的新藉口。該系統評分所使用的參考標準，包括用戶的財務紀錄，對小米應用和社區論壇的使用情況，以及“使用小米手機的頻率”。