WASHINGTON: The world’s largest retailer Walmart has sued credit card giant Visa for more than $5 billion for conspiring with banks to fix fees that merchants pay for accepting Visa card payments.

In the suit filed this week in Arkansas, where Walmart is based, the retailer said Visa worked with some of the largest US banks “to illegally fix the interchange fees and inflate the network fees that Walmart and other merchants pay on Visa charge card transactions.”

It said that Visa and the banks as well worked together to set rules that prevent retailers from protecting themselves against such fees.

Walmart said the banks agreed with Visa to establish one inflexible interchange rate regime, and suggested this prevents it from any ability to negotiate what would be a market rate.