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Banking and crime
金钱的罪恶
Hitting at terrorists, hurting businesses
打击恐怖，损害金融。
Forcing banks to police the financial system is causing nasty side effects
迫使银行监督金融机构会造成令人厌恶的副作用。
KIDNAPPINGS for ransom, drug-smuggling, fake invoicing and extortion are just a few of the ways in which terrorists raise cash for their nefarious deeds. Some scams take advantage of globalisation: American officials found that Hizbullah, a Lebanese movement, raised funds by exporting used cars from America and selling them in west Africa.
绑架勒索赎金，毒品走私，假发票和敲诈勒索只是恐怖分子筹集现金途径的冰山一角，全球化为恐怖分子资金募集提供了便利，美国官员发现一个黎巴嫩真主党运动，依靠向西非出口来自美国的二手车筹集资金。
Governments are understandably keen to cut terrorists off from sources of cash, and have been taking drastic steps to punish banks for involvement in financing dangerous people. In 2012 the American authorities imposed a $1.9 billion fine on HSBC, a British bank, for lax controls on money-laundering. Big fines have been meted out to Barclays, ING and Standard Chartered for money-laundering or sanctions-busting. BNP Paribas of France is said to be facing a fine of as much as $10 billion in America. Such stiff penalties are popular, and provide great press for ambitious prosecutors. Cut the flow of money to terrorism, their thinking goes, and it will wither.
政府希望减少恐怖分子从资金来源，并已采取行动来惩罚同恐怖活动有金融活动来往的银行。2012美国当局向英国汇丰银行罚款19亿美元，原因是未能有效防控恐怖组织洗钱。巴克莱银行，荷兰国际集团和渣打银行已经由于涉嫌帮助恐怖组织洗钱或违反制裁而受到巨额罚款。法国巴黎银行表示，将面临来自美国10亿美元的罚款。严厉的惩罚成为涉恐案件检察官常用的手段，他们认为这样可以削减资金流向恐怖主义，这种方法是否有效还有待商榷。
Yet there are two problems with this approach. First, the regulations are so demanding and the fines so large that banks are walking away from countries and businesses where they perceive even the faintest whiff of risk. American regulators, for instance, require banks to know not only who their customers are, and what they plan to do with their cash, but also the identities and intentions of their customers' customers. Correspondent-banking relationships—the arteries of global finance that allow people and firms to send money from one country to another, even if their own bank does not have a branch there—are therefore collapsing. Some of world's biggest banks privately say they are cutting as many as a third of these relationships.
然而，这种方法有两个问题。第一，政策非常苛刻，罚款数额巨大，大银行很可能会规避可能涉及恐怖犯罪的国家和商业领域。举个例子，美国监管机构要求银行不仅了解他们的顾客、顾客投资的方向，而且他们客户的客户的身份信息和投资意图也需要了解。银行交易代理是国际金融的动脉，他们让资金在全球公司之间流动，即使他们自己的银行没有设计恐怖注意，却也有有因此而破产的。世界最大的一些银行私下里说他们切断这一部分业务的1/3。
This retreat will have little impact on the rich world. Britain's Lloyds Banking Group, say, will probably always transact with Wells Fargo in America or ICBC in China. But it could prove devastating to small, poor countries whose banks lose their big international partners just because the costs of checking up on them outweigh the paltry profits they generate. Some countries risk being cut off from the financial system altogether: British banks last year threatened to close the last pipeline for money transfers into Somalia. Others will see the costs of intermediation rise: bankers talk of a tenfold increase in fees paid to send money to countries such as Tanzania. Cotton farmers in Mali and small exporters in Indonesia will find it increasingly hard to get trade finance. Even well-known charities responding to UN calls for assistance in countries such as Syria are struggling to get banks to let them send aid.
金融行业业务的缩减比如对发达国家的影响不大。英国的劳埃德银行集团可能会一直进行同美国威尔斯Fargo或中国中国工商银行的合作，但对贫穷小国家产生毁灭性打击，贫困国家的银行失去国际合作伙伴只是因为对这些国家涉恐审核的成本大于他们微薄的经济活动利润。一些国家为了继续国际贸易，冒着同全球金融脱离的风险：英国银行去年威胁要关闭到索马里的资金渠道。另外应该注意的是经济活动中间成本的增加：同坦桑尼亚这样的国家进行经济活动的成本增加了十倍。印度尼西亚的小商品出口商和马里种棉花的农民会发现越来越难获得贸易融资。甚至著名的慈善机构也在联合国寻求银行对叙利亚的援助。
Making it harder to follow the money
资金去处难以跟踪
Were all of this actually preventing terrorism it might be judged a fair trade-off. Yet—and this is the second problem with this approach—it seems likely to be ineffective or even counter-productive. Terrorism is not particularly expensive, and the money needed to finance it can travel by informal routes. In 2012 guards on the border between Nigeria and Niger arrested a man linked to Boko Haram, a Nigerian terror group, with 35,000 in his underpants: laughable, except that the group has killed around 1,500 people this year alone. Restrictions on banks will encourage terrorists to avoid the banking system. That may hinder rather than help the fight against terrorism. A former spy complains that it has become harder to piece together intelligence on terrorist networks now that the money flows within them are entirely illicit.
所有的措施都是希望公平的权衡各国的涉恐情况然而，这是这种方法似乎很可能是无效甚至适得其反。而涉恐惩罚的第二个问题是，恐怖主义并非成本高昂，和资金可以通过非正式的方式涉及恐怖主义。2012年，警卫在尼日利亚和尼日尔之间的边境逮捕了一名与尼日利亚的恐怖集团博科圣地有关系的恐怖分子，35000英镑可笑的藏在他的内裤，希望该恐怖集团一年内造成约1500人死亡。惩罚涉恐银行的措施可能使得恐怖主义绕开银行系统，这可能会阻碍而不是帮助打击恐怖主义。一位曾经做过间谍的抱怨说，现在更加难以拼凑出恐怖分子完整的行动计划，网络空间上他们的资金难以追踪。
When the G20 meets later this year it should urge its members to accept the risk that even in well-regulated banking systems money may find its way to terrorists. Banks should be given clear guidance on necessary safeguards, but not held responsible for every breach.
在今年召开的20国集团峰会应向其成员传达这样的信息，即使在良好银行监管下的资金也可能会流入恐怖主义的腰包。银行应给予资金流动必要的保障措施和明确的指导，但不能对每种渠道负责。
