Why a Visa-Mastercard legal settlement could lead to your rewards credit card getting declined

By KEN SWEET, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Visa and Mastercard have proposed a settlement in their long-running legal dispute with merchants and retailers over how much they charge merchants to accept their cards.

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The most important part of the settlement could directly impact how customers use their Visa- and Mastercard-issued credit cards, and may result in some consumers getting denied at the point-of-sale for purchases

Visa and Mastercard have been in litigation with a class-action group of merchants for nearly 20 years over the costs they impose on merchants to use their payment networks, known as interchange. A previous settlement was rejected by the judge overseeing the case last this year, requiring Visa and Mastercard’s lawyers to go back t