Higher Payouts Should Be in the Cards

Visa and Mastercard cut a good deal in settling a long-running class-action suit with retail merchants this month, agreeing to pay a combined $7.25 billion that they already had set aside, without having to change significantly how they run their lucrative charge-card networks. Barron's has featured both Visa and MasterCard mostly in a favorable light in recent years, including an upbeat article on Visa a year after its initial public offering. Both stocks have risen around 40% in the past 12 months. These gains are largely justified, although the shares now seem fully valued.