Breaking: Visa and Mastercard to both agreed to pay $197 million to settle class action lawsuit. The suit concerns them conspiring to inflate ATM fees higher than they should be.
The lawsuit alleges that Mastercard and Visa imposed ATM network regulations that inflated access fees. As a result, Americans using bank-operated cash machines reportedly paid artificially higher charges for withdrawals.
Reuters reports that court documents reveal Visa and Mastercard have agreed to settlement payments of $104.6 million and $92.8 million, respectively. However, the settlement deal is still pending court approval before it can be finalized.
The settlement proposal came in the wake of a significant legal setback for the card companies. In April, the US Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal, upholding a lower court’s decision against them.
Three major financial institutions reached a settlement agreement in 2021. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo collectively paid $66 million to resolve the claims against them.
Visa and Mastercard are confronting additional legal challenges beyond this settlement. They face two separate class action lawsuits: one filed by consumers who use non-bank ATMs, and another by independent ATM operators.