A years-long legal battle between major credit card issuers VISA and Mastercard and retailers in the United States has come to an end. At issue was the question of transaction fees.
Visa has agreed to pay a sum of $3.3 billion. The group Mastercard will participate with a total sum of about 2 billion dollars. The two sums will be used for a joint fund. 7 million retailers in the U.S. can now look forward to payments from this fund reported the law firm Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Cires.
The banks that agreed to the settlement include Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Capital One. Another achievement by the retailers is regulatory relief from the credit card companies. The retailers’ accusation was aimed at charging fees that were previously unjustified.
An attorney for the retailers calls the ruling an achievement for both retailers and consumers over the banks that previously controlled the credit card system. The lower fees are also expected to result in lower prices for consumers in the long run.
The ruling in this long-running legal battle should especially please smaller retailers who have previously suffered from credit card fees.
