NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Private antitrust litigation pitting some five million retailers against Visa , MasterCard , and 13 large banks, including Bank of America , Citigroup Capital One Financial , JPMorgan Chase , U.S. Bancorp , Wells Fargo , PNC Financial , Fifth Third Bancorp , SunTrust Banks , HSBC and Barclays Plc has slipped under the radar of many analysts and investors who follow those companies, but the case may deliver a multi-billion dollar shock to bank bulls in the coming months.
Estimates of the potential cost of a settlement of the antitrust case vary dramatically--from a few billion dollars into the hundreds of billions. At least as worrisome to the financial companies, according to Deutsche Bank research, is the risk that a settlement or judge's ruling could take the 2% "interchange" fees banks and card companies charge retailers on credit card transactions to as low as .5%, That would equal the rate in Australia, but still be higher than the .3% charged in the European Union, according to a report by Sanford Bernstein analyst Rod Bourgeois.
Remember this case Chase vs. Gergis, dismissed with prejudice? Click here.
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