阿里网恋LendingClub

中国电商阿里巴巴与美国P2P金融先驱Lending Club携手，是一个精明的配对。这一合作最初限于美国，但很可能会随阿里巴巴的电商业务一道扩展到世界各地。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

canny精明的[ˈkæni]

creditworthiness商誉 ['kredɪtwɜ:ðɪnəs]

affiliate附属企业[əˈfɪlieɪt]

Alibaba / Lending Club: cyber love (305 words)

by Lex,February 3, 2015 12:04 pm Match between the two internet marketplaces looks good

Ah, young love. Their public offerings barely past, China's Alibaba and US peer-to-peer finance pioneer Lending Club have hooked up. Lending Club will offer working capital financing to US businesses that buy from Chinese suppliers on Alibaba.com, an English language business-to-business website. The companies promise that an application takes less than five minutes, and offer up to $300,000 in funding. Monthly lending rates range from 0.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent (6-32 per cent annually).

It is a canny pairing. Alibaba contributes the borrowers, providing insights into their creditworthiness from online transaction history, and visibility on the usage of the funds. It should benefit from added sales on Alibaba.com, which is one of its smallest online marketplaces (others include Taobao, a Chinese language consumer-to-consumer site, and Tmall, a business-to-consumer site). Lending Club, meanwhile, gets access to a pool of borrowers. Consistent with Lending Club's model, the loans will be packaged and passed on to individual and institutional investors in the US.

This is just Alibaba's latest step into finance. Through affiliate Ant Financial it already operates China's largest money market fund, with assets of more than $80bn. Last month, Ant Financial became the first of eight companies granted a licence to launch a credit-scoring service, Sesame Credit. It will benefit from access to data on Alibaba's 300m consumers and 37m small business users — including visibility on merchants' cash flows. In a market with short credit histories, and outmoded and disconnected data collection processes, the new business could change consumer finance.

Although the new Lending Club partnership is initially limited to the US, it may well expand globally alongside Alibaba's ecommerce business. Alibaba's finance businesses are becoming an important part of its investment case. Young love can deepen into something greater.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.According to paragraph 1, which of the following statements is not true?

A.Alibaba and Lending Club have both finished the process of IPO

B.The application for loan will take less than 5 minutes.

C.Annual lending rates range from 0.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent.

D.Lending Club will offer financing service to US enterprises.

答案(1)

2.Which of the following statements is not the reason for the collaboration is a canny pairing?

A.The online transaction history will provide Alibaba with the data of clients' creditworthiness.

B.Alibaba is planning to acquire Lending Club.

C.Lending Club will get access to a large number of borrowers.

D.The two companies will have better access to inspect the usage of funds.

答案(2)

3.According to the article, which of the following prediction is reasonable?

A.aba won't set foot in finance or e-commerce in the future.

B.Ant Financial and Sesame Credit will be totally independent from Alibaba when the partnership with Lending Club starts.

C.Alibaba will terminate the cooperation for the restriction and regulation in the US.

D.The new partnership between Alibaba and Lending Club will expand to the whole world in the future.

答案(3)

* * *

(1)答案：C.Annual lending rates range from 0.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent.

解释：第一段末尾作者提到了贷款金额最高可达30万美元，月息为0.5%至2.4%（相当于年息6%至32%）。

(2)答案：C.Annual lending rates range from 0.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent.

解释：文章第二段叙述了阿里巴巴与Lending Club进行合作的好处，但没有提到阿里巴巴会收购Lending Club。其余三项为文章内容的转述。

(3)答案：D.The new partnership between Alibaba and Lending Club will expand to the whole world in the future.

解释：文中提到，现在阿里巴巴与Lending Club新建立的合作最初只限于美国，但很可能会随阿里巴巴的电商业务一道扩展到世界各地。其余选项都与文中提到的趋势相矛盾，或者在文中没有提到。