金融的本质与未来

The Nature and Future of Finance

本轮金融危机的爆发和金融科技的发展,使得人们对金融本质和未来发展的讨论成为近年来的热点话题。本文梳理了"金融"在概念和形式上的发展历史,提出了金融的本质是"中介",并总结了金融发展过程中形成的三种主要中介形式:支付中介、信用中介和撮合中介。通过归纳金融中介职能产生的基础,本文提出了分析金融中介本质的两个视角:客观维度和主观维度。其中,客观维度是社会生产中发生的广义信息不对称,主观维度则是金融机构通过信息处理、风险管理,实现信用创造的过程。针对进来逐渐增多的"金融终结论"和"金融颠覆论",本文论证了金融中介职能上述两方面的基础不仅没有消亡,反而更加突出,但是金融机构实现中介职能的方式将面临重大变革。最后,通过对金融深化和金融稳定的反思,本文强调了风险防控和金融稳定在金融体系发展过程中的重要意义,并对金融公共政策制定提出了若干展望。

The 2008 financial crisis and the recent remarkable developments in Fintech have sparkled tremendous discussion on the nature and trends of finance. This article, developing from an etymological and functional review of finance, proposes that finance has incorporated ＇intermediary＇ as its core function, which can be further classified into three major roles： payment intermediary, credit intermediary and match-making intermediary. The article then refiects on the underlying demand for financial intermediaries by adopting a two-dimensional perspective： an objective dimension derived from a broad presence of information asymmetries, together with a subjective dimension of financial intermediaries in their expertise on information processing, risk management and decision making. It is on this basis that the article, in response to narratives such as ＇nance is overthrown＇ or ＇finance is finished＇, argues that finance, instead of being phased out, is expected to realize more profound values going forward, with its management model, however, doomed to undergo fundamental adjustments. To sum up, this article reects on the balance between financial inclusiveness, financial deepening and financial stability, with the emphasis on an appeal to breed an acute awareness of strengthening policy setting and implementation in proportion to the evolution of the financial architecture.