$167.5M Class Action Settlement Proposed Over Visa, Mastercard ATM Fee Practices

A $167.5 million class action settlement has been proposed in a lawsuit involving Visa and Mastercard, which accuses the companies of preventing independent ATM operators from charging lower fees to consumers.

The lawsuit, Burke v. Visa Inc., alleges that Visa and Mastercard's rules restricted how independent ATM operators could set their access fees. This allegedly prevented them from offering lower fees when transactions could be processed through competing networks, resulting in higher costs for consumers.

Visa is slated to pay $88.775 million while Mastercard will pay $78.725 million, which will go into a settlement fund to pay those affected by the fees. The lawsuit was filed in 2011 and has been ongoing since then.