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Minnesota Twins Fight Visa and MasterCard’s Swipe Fees

February 11, 2014         By: Kevin Xu

The Minnesota Twins, a Major League Baseball team, have joined the ranks of disgruntled merchants fighting Visa and MasterCard’s swipe fees.

This new antitrust suit was filed in New York federal court, and claims that Visa and MasterCard had colluded with banks to raise swipe fees while unfairly limiting merchants’ ability to guide consumers towards other alternatives.

Accepting Visa or MasterCard would force merchants to sign an agreement that took away the ability to enact a surcharge for higher fee cards or discounts for cards with lower fees.

Visa and MasterCard were locked in a long anti-trust battle pertaining to credit cards with a laundry list of retailers, but the case was settled for a record $5.7 billion last December – though many of the plaintiffs had opted out.

Clearly there are merchants, retailers, and even sports teams unhappy about card-fees cutting into their bottom line and are unwilling to accept the terms of the settlement.

There are alternatives to the card networks including those facilitated by digital currencies such as bitcoin, and if the Minnesota Twins decide to go this route, they wouldn’t be the first.

The Sacramento Kings, a professional basketball team that is a part of the National Basketball Association had announced that they would accept bitcoin starting in March, allowing fans to purchase memorabilia and tickets online.