Visa and Mastercard agreed to drop the standard in settling litigation with merchants, but the concession may not be much of a victory.

A legal settlement ending 20 years of litigation by merchants against Visa and Mastercard includes a concession by the card networks that may not ultimately matter much.

The proposed pact, which still awaits a federal judge’s final approval, would eliminate the longstanding rule that forces merchants to agree to accept all Visa cards if they accept one, and similarly accept all Mastercards if they accept any. The rule means merchants must take the networks’ premium cards, for which they pay higher interchange fees, alongside more standard cards, including debit cards, with lower fees.

The rule change would theoretically let restaurants, retailers or other businesses accept some Visa or Mastercard cards, but not others. It would also provide more leeway for imposing surcharges when the more expensive cards are put on the counter by consumers.

But some merchants aren’t impressed. They oppose the legal settlement offered last year by lawyers for the two sides, saying the agreement falls short of expectations, and that eliminating the “honor all cards” rule would essentially be meaningless.

The CEO of American Express seems to agree with them. When Amex CEO Stephen Squeri was asked to comment on his rivals’ agreement to ditch the rule during a webcast with analysts to discuss that company’s recent third-quarter results, he said as much.

He presumably was directing that comment to merchants, who he knows would be hard-pressed to decline Visa or Mastercard cards.

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