“Illinois is on the verge of going from the Land of Lincoln to the Land of Credit Card Chaos, all because of a last-minute backroom deal slipped into the state budget, bypassing regular order and attempting to rewrite long-standing national regulations.”
“The Illinois legislature must immediately repeal this law … States should not follow Illinois’s lead of lawsuits, delays, and widespread confusion … A patchwork of state laws is unworkable. Consistent rules provide the clarity and certainty our payments system needs to protect consumers, small businesses, and local economies nationwide.”
WASHINGTON D.C. – The Electronic Payments Coalition Executive Chairman Richard Hunt issued the following statement after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the nation’s top federal banking regulator, published rules reaffirming nationally chartered banks and their agents are exempt from the IFPA in Illinois, as well as similar proposals in other states.
While this ensures national banks and their customers are exempt from the law, Illinois community banks and credit unions are not, leaving them exposed to its consequences. This first-of-its-kind Illinois law effectively isolates the state out of the global payments system and introduces significant uncertainty in the marketplace, where some credit and debit cards may work and others may not.
“Illinois is on the verge of going from the Land of Lincoln to the Land of Credit Card Chaos, all because of a last-minute backroom deal slipped into the state budget, bypassing regular order and attempting to rewrite long-standing national regulations. With some banks and customers exempt and others not, this is not a simple fix like an iPhone update.
“The Illinois legislature must immediately repeal this law. It is a recipe for confusion, higher costs, and chaos for consumers, community banks, credit unions, and small businesses.
“States should not follow Illinois’s lead of lawsuits, delays, and widespread confusion. Efforts by state lawmakers to impose a patchwork of regulations on a global payments system simply ignore how the modern economy works. Payments do not stop at state lines, and neither would the damage. The consequences would ripple across the country, putting consumers and small businesses at risk.
“Across multiple administrations, current and former regulators have been clear: a patchwork of state laws is unworkable and weakens the protections consumers, small businesses, and local economies need.”
