Abstract: China has established its policy for opening the domestic bank card clearing market. Accordingly, how to supervise the bank card clearing houses in the context of market opening has become a new realistic subject, in which the supervision over the interchange fee is one of the most important ingredients. USA, Australia and European Union, which have been keeping their bank card clearing markets open for a long time, have put into effect one after another the regulation for interchange fees since the beginning of this century. The findings of this study show that the motivations of these regulations implemented by these countries are either illogical, or excessive intervention over microeconomic activities, or actually serving the strategy of payment and economic integration among the sovereign states in the area. In addition, due to the weak theoretical basis, these regulations have not obtained expected results. On that account, the authorities of China should consider relaxing rather than strengthening the direct regulation on interchange fees gradually in the trend of opening up the bank card clearing market.

Key words: two-sided market; interchange fee regulation; motivation; evaluation