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To think it all started out so well.
想想一切开始得如此顺利。
When Goldman Sachs and Apple teamed up to launch a credit card in 2019, neither the storied investment bank nor the technology giant had much experience with consumer banking. That did not stop them from dreaming big.
2019年，高盛(Goldman Sachs)和苹果(Apple)联手推出信用卡，这家历史悠久的投资银行和这家科技巨头在消费银行业务方面都没有太多经验。但这并没有阻止他们怀揣远大的梦想。
They promised to offer “an innovative, new kind of credit card” with no fees and a cutting edge app “designed to help customers lead a healthier financial life.”
他们承诺提供一种“创新的、全新类型的信用卡”，没有任何费用，并配备了一款尖端的应用程序，旨在帮助客户过上更健康的财务生活。
Goldman chief executive David Solomon hailed the Apple Card as the “most successful credit card launch ever,” and analysts predicted that the partnership would shake up financial services.
高盛首席执行官苏德巍(David Solomon)称赞苹果卡为“有史以来最成功的信用卡推出”，分析师预测这一合作将撼动金融服务行业。
But five years on, the double act is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when big companies try to reinvent retail finance on the fly without thinking through all of the ramifications.
然而，五年过去了，这个双人组合成为了一个警示故事，说明当大公司在没有充分考虑所有后果的情况下，试图快速重塑零售金融时，可能会出现的问题。
The top US consumer finance watchdog last week declared that Apple and Goldman had “illegally sidestepped” obligations to consumers in their haste to create a novel product. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the two groups to pay a combined $89mn for mishandling disputed charges and misleading customers about interest-free payment plans.
上周，美国顶级消费金融监管机构宣布，苹果和高盛在急于推出新产品时“非法规避”了对消费者的义务。消费者金融保护局(Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB)命令这两家公司支付总计8900万美元，原因是它们对有争议的费用处理不当，并误导客户关于免息付款计划。
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The partnership has also turned financially sour for Goldman Sachs, which is now trying to exit as it shuts down an ill-fated push into consumer banking that racked up billions in losses.
这一合作关系也使高盛的财务状况恶化，高盛现在正试图退出，因为它正在关闭一项命运多舛的消费者银行业务，该业务造成了数十亿美元的损失。
The saga is partly a warning about hubris. Retail banking is not only harder than it looks but also heavily regulated by watchdogs who take their duties very seriously. That can put the regulators at odds with buccaneering entrepreneurs who want to shake up existing ways of doing business.
这个传奇故事在一定程度上是对傲慢的警示。零售银行业不仅比看起来更难，而且受到非常认真履行职责的监管机构的严格监管。这可能会使监管机构与想要颠覆现有经营方式的冒险企业家产生冲突。
Tech firms are used to launching in beta, a fancy way of saying that they put out a lightly tested product and then modify and improve it as problems are discovered. That attitude spilled over into the Apple Card. Goldman’s board was warned ahead of its August 2019 launch that the system for dealing with disputed charges was “not fully ready”. The bank, which would have had to pay penalties to Apple for a delay, opted to push ahead anyway.
科技公司习惯于推出测试版，这是一种花哨的说法，意思是他们发布了一个经过简单测试的产品，然后在发现问题时进行修改和改进。这种态度也影响到了苹果卡。在2019年8月推出之前，高盛的董事会就被警告，处理争议费用的系统“尚未完全准备好”。这家银行本可以选择推迟，但为了避免向苹果支付罚款，还是决定继续推进。
In the first two years of the card’s existence, more than 150,000 customer-reported billing errors fell between the cracks in some way, the CFPB said. Apple often failed to send the reports to Goldman. When they did arrive, Goldman often failed to respond within legal deadlines — or at all. Customers were left on the hook for tens of thousands of charges that they disputed.
消费者金融保护局表示，在该卡存在的头两年里，超过15万个客户报告的计费错误在某种程度上被忽视了。苹果经常未能将报告发送给高盛。即使报告送达，高盛也经常未能在法定期限内回复，甚至根本没有回复。客户被迫承担他们争议的数万美元的费用。
The CFPB also fined the partnership for the “confusing” way in which it offered a free instalment plan, saying that thousands of customers wrongly ended up paying interest anyway.
消费者金融保护局还因该合作伙伴提供“令人困惑”的免费分期付款方式而对其罚款，称成千上万的客户最终错误地支付了利息。
Innovations contributed to the issues. Apple designed a distinctive user interface and integrated the card into other iPhone apps. It also insisted that everyone’s billing cycle coincide with the calendar month, because that was simpler for customers.
创新促成了这些问题。苹果设计了一个独特的用户界面，并将卡片集成到其他iPhone应用中。它还坚持让每个人的账单周期与日历月份一致，因为这对客户来说更简单。
The card won top rankings in customer satisfaction surveys. But some cardholders got lost in key processes and failed to file forms or tick particular boxes. The single billing date led to huge surges in disputed charges that overwhelmed Goldman’s customer service.
该卡在客户满意度调查中名列前茅。但一些持卡人在关键流程中迷失方向，未能提交表格或勾选特定选项。单一的账单日期导致争议费用激增，使高盛的客户服务不堪重负。
“You want to differentiate the product, but when you deviate from the norm, it can be confusing,” says Jason Mikula, a fintech consultant who previously worked at Goldman.
“你想让产品与众不同，但当你偏离常规时，可能会让人感到困惑，”曾在高盛工作的金融科技顾问杰森•米库拉(Jason Mikula)说道。
Entrepreneurs are often willing to pay that price for innovation. Financial watchdogs take a different view. There is a reason for that. If a fledging web search engine or a shaky chatbot offers less than perfect responses, where is the real harm? But charging customers unfairly or wrecking their credit scores causes measurable pain that regulators have a duty to prevent.
企业家往往愿意为创新付出代价，而金融监管机构则持不同观点。这是有原因的。如果一个新兴的网络搜索引擎或不稳定的聊天机器人提供的回应不够完美，真正的危害在哪里？但不公平地向客户收费或破坏他们的信用评分会造成可衡量的痛苦，监管机构有责任防止这种情况发生。
The episode carries lessons that another group of swashbuckling financial groups should heed: money managers racing to sell alternative assets to wealthy individuals.
这一事件为另一群大胆的金融集团提供了教训：那些争相向富裕人士出售另类资产的资金管理者们应该引以为戒。
Until recently, private equity and private credit firms took money almost exclusively from big pension funds and endowments and avoided most oversight that way. But now that the institutional market is saturated, they are jostling to offer largely untested products to retail investors who may or may not understand what they are buying.
直到最近，私募股权和私募信贷公司几乎只从大型养老基金和捐赠基金中获取资金，并通过这种方式避免了大部分监管。然而，现在机构市场已经饱和，它们正竞相向散户投资者提供大多未经测试的产品，而这些投资者可能并不清楚自己在购买什么。
Some alts firms have partnered with traditional asset managers, others are opting to charge ahead on their own. I hope these new funds and model portfolios work brilliantly. If not, you can be sure that the watchdogs are going to be waiting with bared teeth.
一些另类投资公司已经与传统资产管理公司合作，而其他公司则选择独自前行。我希望这些新的基金和模型投资组合能够取得优异的表现。如果不能，你可以肯定，监管机构将会虎视眈眈地等待着。