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WSJ What’s News

A Settlement in a 20-Year Legal Fight Could Make it Harder to Use Your Rewards Credit Card

10 Nov 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 10.066 Jason Garzadas

As companies seek to close growing gaps in skills and talent, Deloitte U.S. CEO Jason Garzadas believes it's important for organizations to understand their baseline of skills.

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10.507 - 20.742 Unknown

There's so many organizations that can't ask and answer the fundamental questions about how much computer science or data management skills do I have or AI development skills in a given domain.

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20.982 - 25.809 Jason Garzadas

By performing a skills inventory, leaders can truly understand where their efforts should be focused.

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25.829 - 28.333 Unknown

Being blind to those gaps is the real miss.

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28.313 - 32.748 Jason Garzadas

Visit Deloitte.com to learn how your enterprise can help successfully cultivate talent.

Chapter 2: What major change is happening with rewards credit cards?

37.002 - 41.597 Alex Ossola

Got one of those rewards credit cards? Well, merchants could stop accepting them.

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41.645 - 55.252 AnnaMaria Andriotis

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.

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55.713 - 62.607 Alex Ossola

Plus, there's a possible end to the government shutdown that has Democrats furious at defectors within their own party.

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Chapter 3: How will merchants be affected by the new credit card settlement?

62.587 - 89.108 Alex Ossola

And Hollywood may be struggling to bounce back after the pandemic, but IMAX is booming. It's Monday, November 10th. I'm Alex Osola 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 JPMorgan Chase Sapphire Reserve? Well, stores could soon be rejecting them.

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89.689 - 105.739 Alex Ossola

That's because of a settlement between merchants 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.

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105.719 - 111.245 Alex Ossola

So, Anna Maria, should consumers be worried that these popular credit cards won't be accepted in a lot of places?

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111.906 - 130.087 AnnaMaria Andriotis

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.

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131.028 - 133.971 Alex Ossola

So let's back up for a second. What was this case about?

134.204 - 161.595 AnnaMaria Andriotis

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 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

161.575 - 187.988 AnnaMaria Andriotis

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.

187.968 - 196.796 Alex Ossola

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?

197.317 - 224.744 AnnaMaria Andriotis

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.

Chapter 4: What does the new settlement mean for consumers using rewards cards?

562.222 - 583.489 Matthew Dalton

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.

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583.83 - 608.26 Matthew Dalton

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.

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608.611 - 617.682 Alex Ossola

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?

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618.142 - 641.432 Matthew Dalton

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.

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641.813 - 650.049 Matthew Dalton

But the emergence of China, the new market dynamics of clean energy does make this at least under two degrees possible.

650.691 - 653.697 Alex Ossola

That was WSJ reporter Matthew Dalton. Thank you, Matthew.

654.037 - 654.919 Matthew Dalton

Thanks a lot, Alex.

658.392 - 680.349 Alex Ossola

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.

680.77 - 695.976 Alex Ossola

When it hit theaters earlier this year, the movie made 20% of its first weekend domestic box office from IMAX screens. The movie's star, Tom Cruise, and its director, Christopher McQuarrie, touted the jumbo screen experience in IMAX's own promotional video.

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