Court Strikes Down Visa Exit Fee

NEW YORK - In a ruling that will aid hundreds of credit unions and banks, a federal court has barred Visa USA from charging a special fee when a big debit card issuers jumps to rival MasterCard.

The ruling by the U.S. District Court here gives the go-ahead to 100 of the nation's largest debit-card issuers to terminate their agreements with Visa.

The ruling dates back to 2003 when Visa decided to charge a fee to any large financial institution that decided to issue debit cards under the MasterCard brand. MasterCard sued, saying the charge was anti-competitive. In its ruling the court also allowed any of the 100 issuers who signed agreements with Visa while the fee was in place to terminate those agreements.