Nearly 5 million retailers should begin getting payments this fall in the $3.05 billion settlement of a suit that the National Retail Federation filed against Visa and MasterCard in 2003.
The suit, which was settled in June 2003 but continues to run through appeals, complained that Visa and MasterCard forced retailers who accept customers’ Visa and MasterCard credit cards to also accept their signature debit cards, then banks charged retailers high interchange fees for processing those debit-card transactions.
The financial service firms unbundled credit and debit cards in January 2004, allowing retailers to accept one but not the other for payments. That could save retailers tens of billions of dollars, according to NRF documents.
Retailers involved in the class-action settlement could be paid their portion of the $3.05 billion settlement over 10 years. Visa will deposit $2.025 billion over ten years into a fund to pay out damages; MasterCard will deposit $1.025 billion into a separate account.
