Arizona Joins Agreement with Visa, MasterCard

Arizona has joined 17 other states and the US Departnment of Justice in an antitrust settlement with Visa and MasterCard. The two credit card companies have agreed to change their rules to allow merchants to offer discounts, incentives, and information to consumers to encourage them to use less costly methods of payment, such as cash, check, debit or lower cost credit cards.

Merchants pay an acceptance fee every time they accept payment with a credit card. They pay higher acceptance fees for accepting reward cards which reward users with airline miles or cash rebates, among other things. The credit card companies’ current rules prohibit merchants from refusing to accept these cards or from encouraging consumers to use cards with lower acceptance fees. This will now change with the new agreement.