A group of 19 large retailers including Wal-Mart Stores, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Starbucks are pulling out of a pending class-action settlement with Visa and MasterCard, setting the stage for further disputes over transaction-processing fees. According to the merchants, the pending deal won't stop transaction fees from rising and prevents them from taking legal action against credit-card networks for anticompetitive behaviour in the future. The group of merchants also includes major brands like the Gap, Lowe's, Nike, 7-Eleven and Alon Brands. After objecting to the settlement the retailers said in a group statement, that they are considering "additional legal action to recover damages from Visa and MasterCard under US antitrust laws". The merchants and trade groups claimed that the credit card networks and card-issuing banks conspired to set transaction fees that retailers pay each time a customer pays with a credit card at arbitrarily high levels, until a settlement was reached last July. By opting out, the retailers surrender their right to monetary payments of up to $6.05 billion set to go to merchants that accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards. As part of the settlement, the card networks also agreed to temporarily lower interchange rates, by an amount equal to $1.2 billion. The move comes a week before a court deadline to object to the deal. A hearing on final approval of the settlement is scheduled for September 12, 2013.

Enservio announced an agreement with MasterCard for the delivery of claims payments with prepaid debit cards. The move from paper checks to a card-payment solution reduces insurance carrier costs and delivers policy holders immediate, secure and more flexible access to claims settlement funds.

SmartMetric Inc. announced that SmartMetric's Patent infringement litigation against Visa and MasterCard based on its issued "464" patent that covers data cards (smart cards) is claiming $13.4 billion collectively from Visa and MasterCard in damages and paid up royalties. After a number of years before the court, two Markmen hearings and a successful appeal to the United States Federal Appeals Court in Washington DC, Ms. Chaya Hendrick said that the company is looking forward to having its case heard before a trial by jury on September 9th, 2013.