善意需善举:从穷人身上获利 - 《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版 - 博客...

善意需善举:从穷人身上获利

2008-07-03

Doing good by doing very nicely indeed

善意需善举
Jun 26th 2008
From The Economist print edition
In support of profiting from the poor
从穷人身上获利，未尝不可
Illustration by David Simonds
FOR years Muhammad Yunus reigned as the public face of microfinance. It seemed only right when, in 2006, the Bangladeshi economist cum social entrepreneur and his Grameen Bank shared the Nobel peace prize for a micro-lending revolution that has helped millions to earn their own way out of poverty. Yet for the past year or so, microfinance has had another public face, one that troubles people like Mr Yunus. artamos" onclick="tagshow(event)" class="t_tag">CompartamosBanco argues that the best way for microfinance to help the poor is for it to make a socking great profit.
近年来，默罕默德·尤纳斯几乎成了小额贷款的公众代言人。称其为代言人，一点儿也不为过。2006年，这位孟加拉的经济学家兼企业家携其创办的格拉明银行分享了诺贝尔和平奖的荣光。小额贷款堪比一次革命，数百万人由此自力更生，脱贫致富。然而，过去一年左右的时间里，小额贷款的另一副嘴脸却让尤纳斯等人气恼不已。同行，墨西哥国民银行高调提出谋求暴利才是利用小额贷款帮助人们脱贫的最佳途径。

Since Compartamos listed its shares for over $1 billion in April 2007, it has stirred up an increasingly fierce debate. To Mr Yunus and its other critics, the Mexican bank is no better than an old-fashioned loan shark, earning its huge profits by charging poor borrowers a usurious interest rate of at least 79% a year. Perhaps sensing opinion turning against it, the bank has belatedly sprung to its own defence, issuing a defiant justification of its business in an 11-page “letter to our peers”. And it manages to make a convincing case for its strategy of fighting poverty with profits.
2007年4月，墨西哥国民银行挂牌上市，市值超过10亿多美元。争论由此引发，愈演愈烈。在尤纳斯和其他一些批评人士看来，该行无异于旧时高利贷主，狂征暴敛，向穷人们放贷，年利率不低于79%。面对批评，国民银行的自卫反击可谓是千呼万唤始出来，或许是由于感到了舆论的压力，该行终于发表了一份长达11页的“致同胞书”，历数其业务存在致必要，言语颇有挑衅意味。而且国民银行也在着力打造高利贷款的成功案例，一次来佐证其“扶贫牟利”--一举两得的策略。

Shares and sharing out
股份，共享

Compartamos was born out of the same social concern that inspired Mr Yunus. It uses a similar group-lending model to Grameen’s. It says its mission has not changed, but it has become convinced that by pursuing profits it will be able to provide financial services to many more poor people far more quickly than it would if it had continued to act as a charity.
墨西哥国民银行的诞生与尤纳斯的格拉明银行如出一辙，基于同样的社会关切。其整体借贷的模式也与格拉明很是相似。扶贫的宗旨没有变，但国民银行却笃信，与继续进行无异于慈善的低利润运营相比，追求利润会尽早使更多人得益于金融服务。

Microfinance, especially lending to microentrepreneurs with no collateral, is labour-intensive and costly—in Compartamos’s case, around $152 a year per client, with an average loan of $450. By charging an interest rate that generates a profit, the bank can grow fast and provide many more “micro-entrepreneurs” with the finance they need, even at interest rates that by the standards of rich countries seem unacceptably high. The bank now has over 900,000 clients, and expects to reach over 1m this year, up from the 61,000 it had in 2000, after a decade as a traditional non-profit outfit. None of these new borrowers was compelled to come to its doors.
小额贷款，特别是贷给小企业的无抵押款项是一项劳动密集又成本不菲的业务。以墨西哥国民银行为例，客户年均贷款额为152美元，需要支付的利息为450美元。尽管在一些发达国家看来，利息高得离谱。该行还是通过收取利息，创造利润的方式迅速壮大，并为更多的小业主提供财力支持。1990年至2000年这十年期间，国民银行还是传统的非盈利分支机构，2000年开始实行高利率贷款策略，当年客户就达到了61，000个，以后逐年递增，目前客户总数达到了90万，今年有望突破百万大关。 其新增客户中没有哪个是被迫上门的。

Compartamos also argues that its profits will build a microfinance industry. The more it earns, the more attractive microfinance will seem to investors, and the more capital will flow in. And the evidence supports this apparently self-serving claim: since Compartamos started to pursue profit, seven new regulated microfinance providers have begun to compete with it in Mexico, many of them financed by profit-seeking capitalists. Greater scale and competition are driving down interest rates—in Compartamos’s case, from 115% seven years ago. Even Mr Yunus has recently started to make the case for a more self-sustaining “social business” model, though his “non-loss, non-dividend company” is hardly as hungry as Compartamos.
国民银行辩称，其利润将用来打造小额贷款产业。赚的越多，对于投资者的吸引就越大，就会有更多的资金流入。这种露骨的自私自利腔调竟不乏拥护者。自从国民银行开始谋求利润以来，七家新近组建的小额贷款机构也开始竞相效仿，已成竞争之势。这些机构许多都是由套利资本在支持。规模不断增大，竞争越来越激烈，致使贷款利率不断下调，墨西哥国民银行七年前的利率为115%（现在只有79%）。甚至是尤纳斯本人最近也开始推行一种更能自给自足的“社会企业”模式，尽管他那“零损失，零利润”的公司远不及国民银行似饕餮般胃口大开。

Profiting from the poor can be wrong, when lending is predatory—when the lender expects that the borrower will be unable to pay the interest or repay the principal. Compartamos does not target the poorest of the poor: it argues they would be better served by benefits such as income support from the state. It reports low default rates and high customer satisfaction. As for exploiting the ignorance of some borrowers, Compartamos says it is committed to transparency on interest rates and other charges. Since going public, it has offered financial literacy courses—some 60,000 of its clients went on one last year. If only those rich-country banks which touted subprime mortgages to the poor had been as public-spirited.
如果贷款是为了压榨穷人--预计到了借款人无法支付利息或是偿还本金，那么从穷人身上获利的想法就是错的。墨西哥国民银行并没有瞄准穷人中的最困难群体-- 银行自称坏帐少，客户满意度高，如果再能拿到如国家收入补贴这样的优惠，定会更好的服务于民。为了给一些不明就里的借款人解惑，国民银行正在全力提高利率及其他收费的透明度。上市以来，该行举办了数期金融知识扫盲班，仅去年一年，就有6万多位顾客前去听课。其景象，恰似发达国家银行向穷人兜售次级贷款那般“得民心，顺民意”。