Visa and Mastercard have proposed a new settlement of a long-running legal battle over credit card “swipe fees” that could upend how you pay (and earn rewards) at checkout — or not.

Previous attempts at settling this decades-long dispute have fizzled in court, and this new proposal also faces legal hurdles and has detractors on both sides of the issue.

Here’s how it might affect you.

What is this settlement about?

It's a proposal from Visa and Mastercard — the two largest credit card payment networks. Merchants have long argued that Visa and Mastercard are gouging them on the fees they must pay the networks to process card transactions. Those processing fees are known as interchange fees or “swipe fees.”

Sounds like their problem. Why should I care?

Under the proposal, merchants wo

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