Court Sets October Deadline for Approval of Swipe Fee Settlement

Visa and MasterCard have until Oct. 19 to request approval for the existing settlement over credit card interchange fees between themselves, their issuing partners, and U.S. merchants, Bloomberg says.

Regarding the settlement’s proceedings, K. Craig Wildfang, attorney for the plaintiffs, said, “We are going as fast as we can. Not as fast as we would like.”

In its current form, the settlement requires that Visa, MasterCard and their issuing partners make a $6.05 billion cash payment to merchants to compensate them for previous interchange charges, and that Visa and MasterCard lower card acceptance fees by 10 basis points for a period of eight months, providing $1.2 billion in additional relief to merchants.

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