WSJ What’s News - A Settlement in a 20-Year Legal Fight Could Make it Harder to Use Your Rewards Credit Card

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

P.M. Edition for Nov. 10. A settlement between merchants and Visa and Mastercard over interchange fees would let stores reject popular credit cards. WSJ reporter AnnaMaria Andriotis, who covers banking for the Journal, discusses why that’s a big change in the industry that could change how often you use premium credit cards. Plus, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has an end in sight–and Democrats fuming at members of their own party. And while Hollywood box office has been in the doldrums after the pandemic, IMAX is an increasingly hot ticket. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Got one of those rewards credit cards? Well, merchants could stop accepting them. We're definitely entering a new era of credit card rules that could impact most, the vast majority of credit cards with rewards programs out there. Plus, there's a possible end to the government shutdown that has Democrats furious at defectors within their own party. And Hollywood may be struggling to bounce back after the pandemic, but IMAX is booming. It's Monday, November 10th. I'm Alex Osloaf for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

Do you have one of those premium rewards cards like the J.P. Morgan Chase Sapphire Reserve? Well, stores could soon be rejecting them. That's because of a settlement between merchants and. and Visa and MasterCard in a legal fight over credit card swipe fees that dates back two decades. Anna Maria Andriotis, who covers the banking sector for the journal, is here to talk about what this deal means for merchants, banks, and the rest of us. So Anna Maria, should consumers be worried that these popular credit cards won't be accepted in a lot of places? Possibly. And I say that because it's a complicated question. we're definitely entering a new era of credit card rules that could impact most the vast majority of credit cards with rewards programs out there.

So let's back up for a second. What was this case about? Much of this comes down to interchange fees. So every time that consumers pay with a credit card, the merchant pays the bank that issued your credit. credit card, what's called an interchange fee. These fees vary, but they're often between 2% to 2.5% of the purchase price. Merchants pay tens of billions of dollars in these fees every year. These costs have been rising so much for merchants because more and more consumers have switched from cash and debit cards to credit cards.

Two, it's because more and more people are shopping with rewards cards. And it's because credit cards with rewards have higher interchange fees than credit cards that don't have rewards programs. So this legal settlement has enabled merchants to reject some of these cards if they want to. But have they said that they won't take rewards cards? For decades, Visa and MasterCard have had what they call an honor all cards rule. What this rule has said is, merchant, if you accept one visa credit card, you have to accept all visa credit cards. What this settlement has done, if it's

approved by the court, is it essentially says to merchants, okay, we're creating three buckets of acceptance for credit cards. But the moment that you choose to accept one rewards credit cards, that falls into that rewards bucket, you have to accept all of those credit cards. So here's what consumers can expect. There is a possibility that merchants, when you pull out to pay with a rewards credit card, they'll say no.

The chances of merchants doing that are with big merchants, not very high. Because what it could result in would be merchants seeing their sales fall potentially in a pretty substantial way. It will be likely that consumers will see this with smaller merchants, small businesses. Think of like, you know, the bagel store, the hair salon,

the stuff that's just in your neighborhood. Another thing that consumers could be seeing, rather than rejecting the credit card outright, the merchants in particular, the smaller merchants might say, well, I'm going to charge you extra for that. You mentioned banks. How have they responded to this move? It does not benefit banks when something like this happened.

This honorall cards rule basically said to the banks, guys, don't worry about it. You don't have to compete against each other. You don't have to have your own card products competing against each other. Because the moment a merchant accepts one of a visa's credit cards, they have to accept all of them, right? That's not the case anymore. So it's going to make it a little bit tougher right now. It potentially starts to create a little bit more of a real competitive environment for banks when it comes to merchant acceptance.

That was WSJ reporter, Anna Maria Andriotis. Thanks, Anna Maria. Thank you. As we mentioned in this morning show, there's an end in sight to the government shutdown. That's due to eight senators who have broken with Democratic leadership to help Republicans advance a measure that funds the government. The Senate could have its final vote on the measure later today, followed by a vote in the GOP-run House later this week. The crack in party unity drew condemnation from many Democrats, with some left-leaning critics saying Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer can't keep his troops in line. In the meantime, the shutdown drags on. Aviation Analytics Company

Sirium says more than 1,600 flights have been canceled today as of this afternoon, or around 6.3% of the schedule. Bad weather is worsening the pain caused by the FAA flight restrictions and the number of disrupted flights is expected to grow. Meanwhile, President Trump is threatening to dock the pay of air traffic controllers who don't return to work. If flight restrictions have disrupted your travel plans in the past few days, let us know. Send a voice memo to WNPOD at WSJ.com. Hopes of an end to the government shutdown helped lift stocks today. The NASDAQ lead gains closing up 2.3 percent, its biggest one-day rally since May, after a steep slide last week. Chip stocks and the magnificent seven tech companies rose. The S&P climbed one and a half

percent, and the Dow rose less than 1%. Once the government reopens, a slew of delayed government economic data will likely be released. In the meantime, we've been looking at alternative data to get a sense of how the economy is doing. We dropped the first special episode in a four-part series on alternative economic indicators today, looking at what Nevada's employment picture can tell us about the broader U.S. economy. That's in the what's news feed now. Coming up, why IMAX's big screens are bringing in big money. That's after the break.

President Trump pardoned a list of top allies in connection with efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The list of pardons includes high-profile figures such as Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, as well as dozens of others. None of the people identified on the list have been charged with federal crimes, making the pardons a largely symbolic move. The federal pardon would not affect charges brought by state prosecutors. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a long-shot bid to overturn the landmark 2015 decision that gave same-sex couples the constitutional right to marry. In a brief written order, the court turned away in appeal by Kim Davis, a Kentucky County clerk who had denied a marriage license to a gay couple.

And the Food and Drug Administration said manufacturers should remove black box warnings on hormone replacement therapy drugs that alleviate men. symptoms. In an opinion piece published today in the Wall Street Journal, FDA Commissioner Marty McCarrie says clinical trials that appeared to show increased breast cancer risk were not, in fact, statistically significant. He says those warnings may have kept many women away from what could be life-changing treatment. The big United Nations Climate Conference, known as COP 30, starts this week in Brazil. Just as political support is faltering for the landmark Paris Climate Accord.

adopted at the UN Climate Conference a decade ago. The U.S. has pulled out of the agreement, and Europe and Canada are wary of the cost and political unpopularity of climate measures. It's China that has emerged as a clean technology superpower. Paris correspondent Matthew Dalton joins us now. Matthew, what have China's investments in green tech looked like? Well, they are making enormous manufacturing investments in all of the big clean energy technologies. They are installing huge numbers. of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, domestically, and their own electricity grid.

A lot of people think that those installations are so large that they're able to cover China's electricity demand growth on their own. So that's what's happening inside China. And it's just been this titanic shift that few people saw coming, actually, when the Paris Accord was signed in 2015. Overseas, China has been flooding global markets with these products as well. So developing countries all around the world have really been turning to solar and batteries in particular as in some cases the least costly choice for installing power generation. It's sort of a double-edged sword for the West because they haven't been able to compete in many of these technologies.

And so the entire world is relying on China for a lot of this stuff. So the Paris Agreement called for world governments to try to limit global warming to the rise of 1.5 degrees. Celsius since the industrial age. Where do those goals stand now? Global emissions are still rising. China's emissions are plateauing maybe, maybe starting to fall. It's unclear, but emissions in some other countries are still rising. So most people think 1.5 degrees is out of reach without some insane economic catastrophe striking the globe. Under two degrees, even that is going to be tough. But the emergence of China, the new market dynamics of clean energy

does make this at least under two degrees possible. That was WSJ reporter, Matthew Dalton. Thank you, Matthew. Thanks a lot, Alex. And finally, in the movie business, the hot ticket is IMAX. The box office overall has struggled to recover from the pandemic,

but everyone wants IMAX. Its share of domestic and global tickets are at record highs, and its worldwide box office, is on track to exceed $1.2 billion this year for the first time. Take Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning. When it hit theaters earlier this year, the movie made 20% of its first weekend domestic box office from IMAX screens.

The movie star, Tom Cruise, and its director, Christopher McCory, touted the Jumbo Screen Experience in IMAX's own promotional video. Look, we want it on the big screen. It's, IMAX is a beautiful format, and we want an IMAX. There are several sequences in the Final Reckoning that are coming. created specifically for IMAX, and seeing them in IMAX on the big screen is the only time you're ever going to see them like that. It's a spectacular way to watch the film.

Hollywood Power Players are pitching the CEO of IMAX to take their movies, hoping the big screen gets viewers off the couch and into theaters. And if studios land this prize, they splash the IMAX name on movie ads, sometimes an even bigger print than the title of the movie itself. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Biennameh and Zoe Colkin with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Alex O'Sulloch for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning.

Thanks for listening.