Credit card processing fees have been a major irritant to merchants for years. Now retailers may be getting a little relief.

In order to settle a class action lawsuit covering seven million retailers, MasterCard (NYSE:MA), Visa (NYSE:V) and a number of banks will pay more than $6 billion and will slash processing fees for eight months.

The settlement must still be approved by the judge hearing the case. Some parties to the suit have already declared their opposition to the terms, which they say do not go far enough, USA TODAY reports.

News of the potential settlement sent both Visa and MasterCard shares up about 3% in Monday morning trading.

Merchants sued claiming that the credit card companies and banks colluded to fix processing fees in violation of anti-trust regulations.

As part of the agreement, merchants will be able to demand additional fees from consumers who use MasterCard and Visa. Lawyers for the retailers suggested that most merchants would forgo the additional fees since specific charges vary from credit card to credit card and are not disclosed to merchants.

Some retail analysts said the settlement only provides short-term relief and predicted that the credit card companies would simply increase their fees again once the eight-month time frame had lapsed.

Representatives for MasterCard and Visa contended that the companies had done nothing wrong, but said the settlement was potentially less costly than ongoing litigation.