November 9th, according to The Wall Street Journal, Visa and Mastercard are set to settle with U.S. merchants, ending a two-decade-long legal dispute. Under the settlement agreement, the credit card interchange fees charged to merchants will be reduced, and merchants will be granted more flexibility in choosing credit card services. Previously, both networks required merchants to accept all credit card payments within the network if they wanted to accept any particular credit card.The legal battle between the two parties began in 2005 when U.S. merchants accused Visa, Mastercard, and major banks of monopolistic behavior regarding fees and credit card acceptance rules. The two parties reached a settlement agreement in March 2024, proposing a 0.07% reduction in fees over five years and granting merchants more flexibility to surcharge credit card payments. However, the agreement was rejected by the presiding judge.