Few things are as alluring as optimism and Mark Carney sees the banking glass as half-full. The Bank of England governor has arrived from Canada with a dose of can-do spirit, casting off the pessimism of Mervyn King, his predecessor.

少有比乐观主义更吸引人的东西，而英国央行(BoE)行长马克·卡尼(Mark Carney)对银行业的看法就很乐观。卡尼带着一点大无畏的精神从加拿大来到了英国，一改前任默文·金勋爵(Lord Mervyn King)的悲观情绪。

Where Lord King saw banks of questionable value that have grown too big for society’s good, Mr Carney sees a knowledge industry that has been vital to growth and trade since the 19th century. If bankers behave better and the too-big-to-fail problem is solved – two big “ifs” – the City of London will be an asset, not a liability.

金勋爵看到的是银行的价值可疑、且规模之大已超过对社会有益的极限，而卡尼看到的却是银行业自19世纪以来一直是对增长和贸易至关重要的知识产业。如果银行家能更守规矩，同时银行“太大而不能倒”的问题能得到解决（这是两大“假设”），伦敦金融城将成为一项资产，而非负债。

In his speech for the FT’s 125th anniversary , Mr Carney did not exactly dismiss the views of Lord King and Andy Haldane, the Bank’s executive director of financial stability, but he confined them to a footnote. “It was an amazing speech, a radical rupture with the message of the bank since the crisis,” says Ewald Engelen, professor of financial geography at the University of Amsterdam.

在英国《金融时报》创刊125周年庆典上发表演讲时，卡尼没有完全驳斥金勋爵和安迪·霍尔丹(Andy Haldane)的观点，但他认为两人的观点无关大局。霍尔丹是英国央行负责金融稳定的执行董事。阿姆斯特丹大学(University of Amsterdam)金融地理学教授埃瓦尔德·恩格伦(Ewald Engelen)说：“演讲很精彩，彻底改变了英国央行自金融危机以来的论调。”

Prof Engelen says the about-turn embodies Mr Carney’s “willingness to pursue a debt-driven model that got Britain into its mess in the first place”. Martin Wolf expresses similar doubts, citing a research finding that oversized finance can crowd out other forms of enterprise. As Mr Haldane put it in one speech: “The recent history of banking appears as much mirage as miracle.”

恩格伦表示，这种180度大转弯体现出，卡尼“愿意追求一种债务驱动的模式，也就是最初让英国陷入麻烦的那种模式”。马丁·沃尔夫(Martin Wolf)表达了类似的疑虑。他援引的一份研究发现，金融业规模过大，可能挤压其他形式企业的发展空间。正如霍尔丹在一次演讲中所说：“银行业当代史看起来既像奇迹，也像海市蜃楼。”

It strikes me, however, that Mr Carney is essentially right about the importance of the City. It does bring “substantial benefits” to the UK economy that extend far beyond well-paid jobs for bankers, traders and hedge fund managers. The question is not whether it is worth having, but whether his optimism about the BoE’s new plans for supervising it is justified.

但我认为，卡尼认可伦敦金融城重要性的观点基本上是正确的。伦敦金融城的确对英国经济“大有裨益”，远不仅仅是为银行家、交易员和对冲基金经理提供了待遇丰厚的工作。问题不在于伦敦金融城的存在有无价值，而在于卡尼有无充分理由，对英国央行监管伦敦金融城的新计划感到乐观。

He is right because you must start from where you are – the UK authorities cannot wave a wand and choose between a leading role in finance and Germany’s strength in manufacturing. The City has been a cornerstone of the British economy since the late 19th century (although it took an enforced break between 1914 and 1963, when the first Eurodollar bond was issued). Britain is not Iceland. Its role in global finance is deeply rooted.

卡尼是正确的，因为从现状着手是必须的——英国当局不可能挥舞魔杖，来选择到底是做金融业领军者，还是像德国那样做制造业强国。自19世纪末以来，伦敦金融城一直是英国经济的基石（尽管这一角色在1914年至1963年期间被迫中断——1963年，首只欧洲美元债券发行）。英国不同于冰岛，它在全球金融中的地位根深蒂固。

“I’m sure he’s correct that we live in an era of the knowledge economy and it would be foolish for the UK to throw away its leadership position in one of the few sectors where we have not only a foothold, but a lead,” says Philip Augar, who has written several books about the City. “The danger is an industry that is unconstrained.”

作家菲利普·奥加尔(Philip Augar)说：“我肯定他说的没错，我们确实生活在一个知识经济时代。英国不仅能立足、而且能占据领先地位的行业不多，金融业是其中之一。抛弃这种地位是犯傻。如果这个行业不受监管约束，那才是危险所在。”奥加尔著有多本关于伦敦金融城的书籍。

Being a financial centre is not risk-free, as New York and London experienced in 2007-08, but it has great benefits. London is much more than a moneymaking hub. Activity related to finance has turned it into a nexus of professional services companies – many of them foreign-owned – that rivals such as Frankfurt and Shanghai would like to lure away. One of the BoE’s responsibilities is to make that as hard as possible.

正如纽约和伦敦在2007年至2008年期间的经历所示，当金融中心并非全无风险，但这种地位也会带来巨大的收益。伦敦远非仅仅是一个赚钱枢纽。金融相关活动将伦敦变成了专业服务公司（许多为外资所有）聚集的中心。伦敦的竞争对手法兰克福和上海，都希望将这些公司吸引到自己那里。英国央行的职责之一就是尽可能阻止它们如愿以偿。

The City’s global nature brings another advantage. The size and scope of high street banks is vital to UK taxpayers who rescued Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, and to small businesses wanting loans, but the big City banks (with the exception of Barclays) are foreign-owned institutions such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

伦敦金融城的国际性还带来了另一个优势。高街银行(high street bank)的规模和范围，对英国纳税人（他们曾为苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)和劳埃德银行集团(Lloyds Banking Group)提供纾困）、以及那些希望获得贷款的小企业至关重要，但金融城那些大型银行（除巴克莱(Barclays)以外）为外资所有，比如德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)和高盛(Goldman Sachs)。

The UK economy thus gains from the Wimbledon effect – that the City is an event hosted in Britain, mostly played by foreigners (Barclays is the City’s Andy Murray). The fear after the wave of 1990s takeovers was that foreign banks would be footloose; in practice, London’s role has expanded without the taxpayer’s burden growing in tandem.

英国经济因此受益于温布尔登(Wimbledon)效应，伦敦金融城相当于一场国际赛事的举办地，选手大部分是外国人（巴克莱相当于伦敦金融城的安迪·穆雷(Andy Murray)）。上世纪90年代伦敦金融城的收购潮过后，人们曾担心外资银行将不受约束，而事实上，伦敦的地位在没有加重纳税人负担的情况下变得更重要了。

My doubt is not about Mr Carney’s strategic direction, but whether he is over-optimistic about his real task – as he put it: “It is not for the Bank of England to decide how big the financial sector should be. Our job is to make it safe.”

我并非怀疑卡尼的战略方向，而是怀疑他对自己的真实使命是否过于乐观。关于这一使命，他自己是这样说的：“金融部门的规模多大为合适，不是英国央行要决定的事情。我们的工作是确保其安全。”

For one thing, it is going to take more than the five-year term as governor that he plans to serve to find out whether he has done so. That introduces an element of moral hazard about Mr Carney. Banks tend to make profits in the short term and losses in the long term; BoE governors face similar incentives when it comes to regulation.

首先，卡尼计划担任英国央行行长的任期只有5年，而确定他是否不辱使命需要更长的时间。这带来了一种道德上的风险，对卡尼的可信度构成一定影响。正如银行往往在短期盈利、在长期发生亏损一样，英国央行行长在监管方面面临同样的诱惑。

The BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority has pushed UK banks – Barclays, in particular – to reinforce themselves with more capital but it has not gone as far or fast as the Swiss National Bank in topping up global rules. Mr Carney is noticeably more sanguine about the stringency of the Basel III capital framework than Lord King was.

英国央行下属的审慎监管局(Prudential Regulation Authority)一直推动英国的银行（尤其是巴克莱）增加资本金、以提高抗风险能力，但在履行国际监管规则方面，它的步子没有像瑞士央行(Swiss National Bank)那样大、也没有那样快。卡尼对《巴塞尔协议III》(Basel III)中资本金规定严格度的看法，显然比金勋爵更为乐观。

There is also a crowd-pleasing quality to the liquidity rules unveiled by Mr Carney in his speech. Bank governors used to cultivate ambiguity about whether they would help lenders under stress but he was crystal clear. The BoE will offer liquidity support to banks not only routinely but more cheaply than it did before.

卡尼在演讲中提出的流动性规则也有些取悦大众的意味。央行行长往往对是否会帮助陷入困境的银行含糊其辞，但卡尼却说得清清楚楚。英国央行不仅会定期为银行提供流动性支持，还会提供比以往更优惠的贷款利率。

The quid pro quo is that Mr Carney wants to ensure that no bank is too big to fail – those that get into serious trouble will have to be bailed-in by investors, rather than bailed out by taxpayers. The problem is that this policy amounts to jam today with payment tomorrow. He can offer liquidity immediately but it will take a lot of international negotiations to agree on any new bank resolution regime.

相应的，卡尼希望确保所有银行都不会发展到“太大而不能倒”的地步——那些陷入严重困境的银行以后必须由投资者（而不是纳税人）纾困。问题在于，这种政策相当于寅吃卯粮。他可以立即提供流动性，但要达成任何新的银行处置机制，则需要进行大量国际谈判。

That, rather than nice words about an industry that exists and he could not shrink much even if he wished to, is the difficulty. His ambition of encouraging the City while imposing tighter discipline is sound and plays to Britain’s strengths. But the Bank of England has yet to deliver.

这才是困难所在，而对这个已成既定事实、即便卡尼想缩减也缩减不了太多的行业说几句漂亮话并不是难事。他希望在收紧监管的同时鼓励金融城，这是明智的，也有助于英国发挥所持。但英国央行的计划能否实现，还有待时间检验。