The revised agreement aims to end two decades of litigation over credit card “swipe fees,” but retailers say it still doesn’t go far enough.
NEW YORK — November 10, 2025.
Visa and Mastercard have agreed to a revised settlement with U.S. merchants in a landmark antitrust case over credit card “swipe fees,” after a federal judge rejected an earlier $30 billion accord last year as insufficient.
The proposed deal, filed Monday in federal court in Brooklyn, would resolve 20 years of litigation in which merchants accused the two card giants and major banks of conspiring to inflate interchange fees — the charges businesses pay every time customers use their credit cards.
Under the new settlement, Visa and Mastercard would reduce swipe fees by 0.1 percentage point for five years, bringing typical rates down to 1.9%–2.4%, while standard consumer card fees would be capped at 1.25% for eight years — a 25% reduction. The companies also agreed to give merchants greater flexibility to impose surcharges and to choose whether to accept specific card categories, such as premium rewards or commercial cards.
Despite the concessions, major trade associations — including the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Merchants Payments Coalition — say the deal fails to address the core issues that led Judge Margo Brodie to reject the earlier agreement in June 2024.
“You can’t just tell more than 80% of your card customers you’re not going to take their cards,” said Stephanie Martz, general counsel for the NRF. “You would lose a lot of business.”
Swipe fees — also known as interchange fees — totaled $111.2 billion in 2024, up from $100.8 billion in 2023, and have quadrupled since 2009, according to the NRF.
Visa, headquartered in San Francisco, said the new settlement provides merchants “of all sizes” with meaningful relief and flexibility. Mastercard, based in Purchase, New York, said smaller businesses would benefit the most from lower costs and simpler rules.
Neither company admitted wrongdoing. Their shares rose less than 1% in early trading Monday.
The previous $30 billion deal would have lowered fees by just 0.07 percentage points and saved merchants about $6 billion annually, a sum Judge Brodie described as “paltry” compared to Visa and Mastercard’s overall profits. She also criticized the agreement for keeping the controversial “Honor All Cards” rule, which forces merchants to accept all Visa and Mastercard products or none at all.
Industry groups remain divided: the Electronic Payments Coalition, which includes major banks like Chase, Citibank, Capital One, and Bank of America, supports the new deal, arguing it would lower fees more effectively than pending Senate legislation sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)
“You tell me the last time Walmart reduced any of its prices by more than 25%, and kept it for eight years,” said Richard Hunt, the coalition’s executive chairman.
Opponents, however, say the settlement still limits merchant negotiation power.
“This deal doesn’t give banks an incentive to lower rates,” said Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores. “It lets Visa and Mastercard raise their own, without limitation.”
Judge Brodie must approve the agreement before it takes effect.
