Visa and Mastercard are close to swipe-fee deal

Visa and Mastercard are getting close to settling a 13-year-old lawsuit over fees charged when merchants accept card payments, according to a person familiar with the agreement.

The two card companies and banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America would pay merchants about $6.5 billion under the terms of the settlement, the person said, asking not to be identified because the deal hasn’t been made public.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of 12 million merchants nationwide, was filed more than a decade ago. A federal appeals court in 2016 rejected a $5.7 billion settlement of the claims, which center on whether companies improperly fixed credit-card swipe fees, the charges also known as interchange that are paid by merchants when consumers use credit or debit cards.

Mastercard said in a filing on Thursday that it will boost its reserves by $210 million this quarter “as a result of advances in negotiations related to the monetary damages claims.” Visa said in a filing this week it had added $600 million to its litigation escrow account.

Visa already had about $884 million in its litigation escrow account as of March 31, the company said in a quarterly regulatory filing. Mastercard reported that it had reserved $737 million for the merchant litigation as of that date.

The new agreement doesn’t include provisions that held up the 2016 settlement attempt, including wording that would prevent merchants from ever suing again over interchange rates even if they don’t take money from this settlement, the person said.

“The parties worked with two well-regarded mediators for more than a year to reach this agreement and I do not expect it to be controversial,” said Mitch Goldstone, president and chief executive officer of ScanMyPhotos.com, one of the most active class representatives in the swipe-fee litigation.