Electronic Payments Coalition Executive Chairman Richard Hunt issued the following statement after the Illinois General Assembly voted for the second consecutive year to delay implementation of the state’s flawed “Credit Card Chaos” law, also known as the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (IFPA):
“We appreciate lawmakers again delaying this law to prevent immediate disruption for Illinois consumers, small businesses, community banks, and credit unions.
“At the same time, this latest delay is yet another acknowledgment that lawmakers rushed through a deeply flawed law without fully understanding the consequences. Unfortunately for Illinois consumers, small businesses, community banks, and credit unions, delaying the chaos is not the same as fixing it. The only real solution is full repeal.
“Illinois consumers and local financial institutions deserve more than another temporary delay. They deserve certainty. They deserve a workable policy. And they deserve a permanent solution.
“Policymakers in other states should learn from the Land of Lincoln before turning their own states’ economies into the next Land of Credit Card Chaos.”
NOTE: In a filing with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal regulator tasked with overseeing the safety and soundness of our nation’s banking system, EPC wrote: “ The National Bank Act, signed fittingly enough by Illinois’ Abraham Lincoln, has long ensured nationally chartered banks operate under a uniform federal framework rather than a patchwork of conflicting state laws. Courts have consistently recognized that state laws interfering with national banking powers are preempted under federal law. This principle is especially important in the modern payments system, where transactions move seamlessly across state lines through nationally integrated networks. Allowing individual states to impose differing interchange mandates would create operational disruption, legal uncertainty, and significant compliance burdens that threaten the efficiency and reliability of the national payments system — and risk turning the Land of Lincoln into the Land of Card Chaos.”
