Credit card companies Visa and Mastercard have settled decades of litigation over how much they charge merchants who accept their cards.
Businesses accused Visa and Mastercard, as well as banks, of conspiring to violate antitrust laws through swipe fees collected by the companies, Reuters reported.
Businesses pay every time a customer uses a card to pay, Fox Business reported.
They agreed to a revised $38 billion settlement. A judge still has to approve the agreement and had previously rejected a $30 billion deal.
The National Retail Federation and the Merchants Payments Coalition said that businesses will still have to pay too much to allow the use of Visa and Mastercard. But they’re in a difficult position. Stores can either pay the fees or not accept about 80% of credit cards used, the groups said.
“You can’t just suddenly tell more than 80% of your card customers you’re not going to take their cards,” Stephanie Martz, the NRF’s general counsel, said, according to Reuters. “You would lose a lot of business.”
Mastercard told Fox Business that the settlement the “best resolution for all parties, delivering the clarity, flexibility and consumer protections that were sought in this effort.”
Visa said the agreement “would provide meaningful relief, more flexibility and options to control how they accept payments from their customers.”
Swipe fees, or interchange fees, cost about $111.2 billion in the U.S. last year.
In addition to the billions paid in the settlement, the agreement also requires Visa and Mastercard to lower the fee, which averaged 2.35% last year.
Stores will be able to choose cards in specific categories and will be able to add surcharges of up to 3%, Reuters said.
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