지급결제상의 소비자보호와 경쟁정책상 법적 쟁점

Payment and settlement systems have been formed under the Government. A type of monopolistic utility company accounts for the largest part of the systems. For this reason, rival firms are attempting to mitigate the monopolistic structure of the market in the process of wider application of competition law recently. However, because of the characteristics of payment and settlement systems, it is not clear that exclusion of monopolistic structure improves consumer welfare and reduces consumer expenditures as some overseas examples shown. In this regard, this study suggests that the purpose of competition law is not only to form a competitive market structure as Chicago School insisted, but also to improve consumer welfare. Payment and settlement systems field could be a economical infra-structure to consumers. Bringing competition is important to improve consumer welfare and to reduce consumer expenditures. The case of joint network of credit card affiliated stores is the key example that competition law was applied to payment and settlement systems, and also shows that the purpose of competition law - improvement of consumer welfare and reduction of consumer expenditures - was accomplished along with consumer protection. From a wider point of view of payment and settlement systems, its huge management network indicates that monopolistic utility company model can be more valuable for consumer-intimate reasons. Therefore, application of competition law appears to function better for improvement of consumer welfare and reduction of consumer expenditures. Accordingly, it is necessary to consider the limit for judgement standard for applying competition law. And hopefully, this study will be a guide to setting the standard.