Visa and Mastercard merchant-fee settlement process moves through thousands of claims, court update shows

Visa and Mastercard are continuing to unwind part of a long-running legal fight over interchange fees, with a court-appointed official now working through a large backlog of merchant-related claims.

In a quarterly update discussed by a market news report, the administrator said progress is being made on around 40,000 merchant claims issues. The update indicates the settlement process is still in an active, claims-processing phase rather than being fully resolved.

The merchant claims matter because the litigation focused on whether merchants were improperly charged certain network and payment-processing fees, with the resolution process intended to compensate merchants that are deemed eligible under the settlement framework.

The quarterly status also suggests the pace of work is measured and procedural. Instead of any single near-term milestone, the administrator’s job is described as working through claim-by-claim issues, which can require additional review, documentation, and determinations before any payments can be authorized.

For Visa, Mastercard, and the broader payments industry, interchange is a central piece of how card networks price transactions. Changes or uncertainty tied to interchange settlements can affect merchant costs, card-acceptance economics, and how issuing banks and processors structure payments products.

The report does not spell out the magnitude of any payments yet, nor does it provide details on what proportion of the 40,000 merchant issues have already been resolved versus remaining. It also does not disclose whether the administrator expects any particular court-approved deadlines for the next phase of claim determinations.

Because the update is framed as a quarterly operational status, it provides limited visibility into the economics of the settlement. For example, the market report does not quantify total expected payouts, describe how disputed claims are categorized, or indicate when the remaining merchant claims could translate into remittance schedules.

What to watch next is whether future quarterly updates indicate that the number of unresolved merchant issues is declining more quickly, and whether the court provides any additional procedural guidance that would tighten timing around eligibility decisions. For merchants, the key near-term question is whether their individual claim status is moving toward resolution.