The federal court overseeing a $5.54-billion settlement between millions of card-accepting merchants, on one hand, and Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., on the other, over interchange costs recently took several steps that ultimately could get payments out to merchants. But checks still won’t be in the mail for some time. …

The shares of Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. reached all-time highs Wednesday following a report from The Wall Street Journal that the two major card networks plan to raise interchange and network fees in October and April. Visa closed at $246.23 per share, and Mastercard at $413.91. The networks have historically introduced new pricing …

Small businesses in Canada will reap lower interchange rates in that country, the Department of Finance Canada announced Thursday. The deal suggests a similar reduction is possible in the United States, the Merchant Payments Coalition quickly responded. Both Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. agreed to lower the domestic consumer credit …

Georgia has joined a small but growing number of states that have introduced legislation to ban the portion of credit and debit card transaction fees that apply to sales tax. The Georgia bill, introduced late last week by Georgia state senator Billy Hickman (R-Statesboro), proposes prohibiting the fees from being …

Fresh off the introduction of its buy now, pay later product, the big private-label and cobranded credit card issuer Synchrony Financial on Monday reported that strong consumer spending in the second quarter boosted its purchase volumes and interchange income. Stamford, Conn.-based Synchrony said total purchase volume hit $47.2 billion for …