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.

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is looking for acquisitions. Charlie Scharf, the Chief Executive Officer of Visa Inc. said in a telecom conference, “We look at acquisitions. What I'd say is you should expect us to continue to look at the types of things that we have looked at, which are relatively small buying capabilities whether it is development capabilities or product capabilities such as Fundamo, but albeit relatively small. And that leaves the majority for the dividend, which we are comfortable at the level that it is, and would continue -- expect to continue to increase it at a reasonable rate and -- but return most of the excess capital to shareholders through repurchases at this point.”

Visa Inc. announced a processing enhancement for Visa Offers, a solution that enables Visa issuers, acquirers and merchants of all sizes to deliver targeted rewards to Visa cardholders. The enhanced service has the potential to eliminate paper coupons, allowing consumers, who opt in, to earn points and discounts as well as redeem special offers instantly at checkout by simply using their enrolled Visa card. The platform supports Visa's commitment to offer solutions for retailer and financial institution clients of any size that allows them to deliver customized and differentiated benefits to Visa cardholders at the point-of-sale. Visa's payments processing network, VisaNet, enables the efficient delivery of these offers that can enhance the consumer checkout experience, increase merchant sales and strengthen issuer relationships. The new capabilities include: fully Customizable Offer ContentRetailers and financial institutions can deliver offers that are tailored to individual customers, through email, web and mobile. For example, a clothing retailer could deliver a personalized text message or email to customers who have opted in to the program while they are shopping nearby; real-time Offer Relevancy The platform also provides retailers and issuers data insights and analytics to measure the point-of-sale redemption rate, allowing them to create customized and more relevant offers; consumer Loyalty Qualification Through the enhancement of the Visa Offers platform, retailers and issuers can use real-time messaging capabilities to identify and uniquely reward loyal customers; multiple Redemption Options Enhancements to the Visa Offers platform include support for real-time redemption of offers and rewards at the point-of-sale. This complements the existing statement credit capability; support for Multiple Offers Programs The Visa Offers platform supports both Visa-specific and third-party offer programs to help drive incremental purchases and a faster, more seamless checkout experience for consumers, who provide their consent.