1. For more than a decade, e-commerce and mail order/telephone ordermerchants across the globe have looked to Instabill to provide high-quality,affordable, and secure credit card processing support. In this short article,Instabill discusses the basic facts and potential ramifications of theongoing Visa and MasterCard swipe fee lawsuit.Despite the fact that both Visa and MasterCard opted to lower debit cardinterchange fees in 2011, swipe fees tied to credit card payments remain atclose to 2 percent, a rate that can negatively impact revenue forbusinesses that accept the bulk of payments in credit card form.Generating in excess of $40 billion annually in U.S. markets, credit cardswipe fees benefit the financial institutions responsible for issuing thecards themselves, an entrenched yet perhaps unsustainable economicplatform that sparked a massive class-action lawsuit against Visa andMasterCard.In July 2012, these two dominating credit card companies finally settledwith plaintiffs and agreed to pay $6.05 billion to merchants involved in thesuit. The settlement terms also indicate that Visa and MasterCard willfunnel $1.2 billion to reduce swipe fees temporarily and pay an additional$525 million to merchants that chose to sue on an individual basis. Forfurther reading on the settlement agreement, visit Instabills blog atblog.instabill.com