On March 26, 2024, Visa and Mastercard announced a $30 billion settlement to lower credit card swipe fees. These fees, which merchants pay to process card transactions, average around 1.6% to 2.5% for Visa and Mastercard. The agreement, if approved by a federal court, will reduce these fees by 0.04 percentage points for three years, and cap average fees at 0.07 percentage points below the current average for five years. Merchants could pass these savings on to consumers, but they don’t have to. The agreement would also allow merchants to add surcharges for certain card networks in order to steer you toward certain payment methods.