China's Banking Industry Anti-monopoly Regulation Problem Research

As Chinese "anti-monopoly law" took effect on January 1,2008, the antitrust practice in China was put on the formal agenda, and several antitrust litigations took place consequently. As a result, the long-standing monopoly structure of the Chinese banking could not be able to adapt the overall trend of the deepening openness of the financial sector after joining WTO. The monopoly structure of the banking not only undermines the competition of the financial market, disrupts the efficient allocation of the financial resources, does harm to the interests of the financial consumers, but also produces great negative impact on the rapid and health development of the financial industry as well as the national economy. An effective system of setting and implementation of the banking antitrust can foster the competitiveness of China's banking industry, protect fair competition in the banking market, improve financial efficiency and maintain the overall stability of the whole financial system.In this paper, the author carries out the preliminary studies on the Chinese banking monopoly as a core on the basis of the interpretation of the fundamental legal theory of the banking monopoly, combines the general antitrust principles with the manifestations of the banking monopoly, analyzes the main problems in the application of "anti-monopoly law" to the banking industry, draws lessons from the advanced foreign anti-trust practices, puts forward a number of advices on improving the banking industry antitrust system as a useful reference under the premise of the actual conditions in China. The paper is divided into the following four parts:The preface outlines the background and significance of topic, the current status of the academic study on this issue, the purpose and methods of this research. The first part discusses the basic legal theories of the banking monopolies, including the concept of the monopoly and banking monopoly, introduces the basic elements of the banking monopoly, including the relevant market, market dominance and market concentration degree. The second part summarizes the advanced experience of the banking antitrust in U.S. from the three levels of legislative, agencies and judicial instances. The third part concludes the formation of Chinese banking monopoly at the beginning, and analyze the main manifestations of the banking monopoly and its harm, including 4 parts as monopoly agreements reached between the banks, abusing of the market dominant position, M & A among banks with the effects of eliminating or restricting the competition and the administrative monopoly. The fourth part reviews the existing system of the banking antitrust from the two aspects of the legislative and institutional settings, points out the urgent need for improvement, and brings forward the policy and legislation proposals from four angles of policy suggestions, the relation between the banks and the governments, the antitrust agencies setting and the legislation improvement, combining with the advanced U.S. banking antitrust experiences, advantages and disadvantages of setting mode of the banking antitrust in main countries/regions and focusing on the lacks of our system.