Merchants Coalition: “Reject Visa, Mastercard Proposed Settlement”
Visa and Mastercard proposed a new settlement in the decades-long antitrust battle between the card networks and merchants regarding interchange fees. This marks the card networks’ third proposed settlement, the last of which was denied by a U.S. District Court Judge in 2024 for not protecting retailers.
Among its provisions, the settlement proposed on Nov. 10, 2025, would lower credit-card interchange fees, often between 2% and 2.5%, by an average of about 0.1 percentage points over several years. Merchants would gain more flexibility to reject certain credit cards, such as rewards cards, which typically have higher interchange fees. Visa and Mastercard would classify cards as credit cards with no rewards programs, rewards credit cards, and commercial cards. Merchants could choose which categories to accept but they would still be required to accept cards from every bank and all cards within a category.
The Merchants Payments Coalition, of which NATSO is a member, strongly urged the court to reject the proposal, saying it represents business as usual for the credit card companies.
MPC said banks would be able to move credit cards into different categories, effectively forcing merchants to accept all cards or risk losing customers, while continuing to charge high interchange fees. “Under this proposal, Visa and Mastercard would get to keep fixing swipe fees while Main Street businesses and customers would pay the price,” MPC said.
Merchants Say Credit Card Swipe Fee Settlement Proposal ‘Fails Once Again and Should Be Rejected’
NATSO, MPC and thousands of companies have urged Congress to pass the Credit Card Competition Act, which would create choice for the processing of credit card transactions by requiring the largest U.S. banks that issue Visa or Mastercard credit cards to allow transactions to be processed over at least two unaffiliated card payment networks.
Latest Proposed Swipe Fee Settlement is More Smoke and Mirrors
U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie rejected a proposed settlement by Visa and Mastercard in 2024 amid concerns about the “honor all cards” rule.
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