Research On The Monopoly Of The Third-party Payment Market

The advancement of information technology has promoted the continuous development of the Internet economy,and third-party payment has shown a prosperous development situation in recent years,among which Alipay,Tenpay and other enterprises are the most prominent.The rapid development of third-party payment has also brought about problems in market competition,which is manifested in the monopolistic behavior of advantageous enterprises in order to obtain competitive advantage.As an emerging payment method,cross-network externalities and non-neutral price structure are important characteristics of third-party payments.The monopoly problem of the third-party payment market may be manifested as monopoly agreements,abuse of market dominance,harming fair market competition,inhibiting industry innovation and infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.Therefore,it is necessary to implement anti-monopoly on the third-party payment market,and how to evaluate and identify monopoly in the law is the focus and difficulty of anti-monopoly in the third-party payment market.This paper uses the analysis path of combining legal theory,legislative text and specific behavior to demonstrate how to determine the monopoly problem of the third-party payment market.The main body of this article has four sections:The first part is the monopoly problem of the third-party payment market.This section first points out that third-party payment is a payment method,the core of which is to provide online monetary fund transfer services for the parties to the transaction.Secondly,it is pointed out that the two-sided market characteristics of third-party payments make them have cross-network externalities and non-neutral price structures.Third,it is proposed that the monopoly of the third-party payment market may be manifested as monopoly agreements and abuse of market dominance.Finally,it is pointed out that the cause of the monopoly problem of the third-party payment market lies in its network effect and strict financial regulation.The second part is the theoretical basis and necessity of anti-monopoly in the third-party payment market.This part first proposes that antitrust in the third-party payment market should be based on the theory of two-sided markets.Secondly,from the perspective of the negative impact of the monopoly of the third-party payment market,monopoly damages fair competition in the market,inhibits industry innovation and infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers,so it is necessary to regulate it against monopoly.Finally,it is proposed that the antitrust of the third-party payment market should focus on monopoly agreements and abuse of market dominance.The third part is a monopoly agreement in the third-party payment market.This section focuses on the boycott and vertical integration of the third-party payment market,with UnionPay,commercial banks,Alipay and Taobao as examples.The boycott of UnionPay and commercial banks and the vertical integration of Alipay and Taobao constitute monopoly agreements.UnionPay and commercial banks’ boycotts cannot meet the exemption conditions and should be subject to anti-monopoly regulation.The vertical integration of Alipay and Taobao constitutes an exemption from the application of the Anti-Monopoly Law because it can justify it in terms of market competition and consumer benefits.The fourth part is the abuse of market dominance in the third-party payment market.This section focuses on tie-in and predatory pricing in the third-party payment market,citing Alipay and Tenpay as examples.Alipay’s default tie-in and Alipay and Tenpay’s differentiated charging strategies for users at both ends constitute abuse of market dominance,and anti-monopoly regulations should be imposed.