The Comparative Study Of The Supervision Of Bank Card Industry

Bank card was born in1950s’ Europe and America,which combined thetraditional banking services and electronic technologies. After years’ rapiddevelopment,bank card industry took shape gradually and acquired the basic integralelements. The most significant trait for bank card industry is that it’s basicallycomposed of two-sided markets,namely,the issuing market and the acquiring market.And transfer settlement service provider(also known as bank card organization) playsthe important part in connecting two markets by interchange the transactioninformation between the issuing bank and acquiring bank. Recently bank cardindustry in many countries is under strict supervision for the reason that it is anessential part of national payment system. The major countries undertake thesupervision from the perspective of financial law and competition law. As to thefinancial level regulation,more attention is paid to control of various kinds of bankcard business risks and prudential supervision of the entry of foreign bank cardorganization. As to the competition law regulation, the pricing activity of themonopolistic bank card organization has aroused regulators’ comprehensive concern.The bank card industry of China was established in1980s. Although China’sbank card industry revealed an astonishing speed of development, supervision systemconcerning the bank card market did not satisfy its basic desire for stability and order.In2012,WTO dispute settlement body(DSB) rejected the United States’allegation of the monopoly of China UnionPay in the report of panel for the case “CertainMeasures Affecting Electronic Payment Services”(WT/DS413/R). However,DSB alsoindicates that electronic payment services Unionpay provided in this case belong tothe certain category of China’s Schedule of Specific Commitments in GATS，whichmeans foreign investors should be accessible to the bank card market of China.Therefore,in order to cope with the coming challenge,we should learn from Americaor Europe’s advanced experience in supervision of bank card industry and apply it toChina’s practice.The paper contains four parts,besides introduction and conclusion part. Thecontents are as follows:The first part introduces the basic theory of supervision of bank cardindustry,which includes the status of the industry and integral entities in bank cardmarket. Besides,the necessity and the fundamental principles for supervision are alsojustified.The second part introduces and compare America, Australia and Europe Union’sbank card supervision system respectively from the perspective of supervisionmode,basic goals,subject of supervision and supervision content. Then,a briefconclusion is made about the beneficial trend and experience of these countries’regulation practice.The third part mainly introduces the bank card supervision system ofChina,including legislation,regulatory bodies and content. In addition, the problemsexisting in the system are analyzed thoroughly.The last part comes up with the possible solutions toward the perfection of bankcard supervision system of China, which are based on the western countries’ advancedpractice and international financial regulation articles.