Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
The Electronic Payments Coalition has opened another front in the battle over the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act with the launch of an ad campaign aimed at having the law overturned by the Illinois legislature.
The campaign comes hard on the heels of efforts by organizations representing financial institutions in Illinois to overturn a court ruling last month that upheld the IFPA’s key provision, which exempts Illinois merchants from paying interchange on the sales-tax and gratuity portions of credit and debit card transactions.
The EPC’s new public-awareness campaign focuses on how the IFPA will impact consumers and businesses in Illinois. The law is scheduled to go into effect July 1.
Among the adversely affected demographic groups highlighted in the campaign are workers who receive gratuities. The ad highlights the confusion that can take place at checkout if merchants have to separate tips and sales tax from a card-based transaction or require consumers to pay tips separately in cash to comply with the IFPA. That resulting confusion could adversely affect tipped-workers’ gratuities, the EPC argues.
The campaign also focuses on how the IFPA could cause small businesses to lose sales as a result of the “cash-register chaos” created by the IFPA.
The EPC plans to run its ads on broadcast, cable, digital and Out of Home platforms throughout Illinois, as well as on national news programs. In the case of the latter, the EPC is hoping to send a warning to legislators in other states of the potential “havoc” the IFPA could wreak in those states if they pass similar legislation.
In 2025, 26 states considered legislation similar to the IFPA, according to the EPC. None of those bills passed, the trade group says. That makes Illinois “a global outlier and the only state willing to shift costs of corporate mega-stores onto its constituents,” the EPC says.
The Washington, D.C.-based EPC, which was established in 2010, represents financial institutions and payment card networks.
