We are pleased to announce that on June 1, 2025, the Illinois General Assembly passed an eleventh-hour delay to the Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (IFPA). The proposal was introduced and passed by the IBA and our Illinois co-plaintiff in the interchange litigation, the ICUL (credit union league). This simple change in law extends the effective date until July 1, 2026. Full text is here.
While the IBA, ICUL, and our national coalition partners laid the groundwork for this legislation for months, the language was not filed until very late in the spring legislative session following a fierce behind-the-scenes battle with the retail industry, during which the retailers proposed expanding the IFPA, in part by adding an explicit private right of action for merchants.
In the end, the “clean” 12-month extension bill passed overwhelmingly in the early morning hours of June 1, with only a handful of Republicans voting against it and all present Democrats supporting its passage.
However, it is noteworthy that the Senate President, while voting “Yes” on the measure, declared that he was only doing so to allow time to complete the court case. From there, he said he looked forward to wrapping the judicial proceedings and then ensuring that the IFPA went into effect in Illinois.
We will now ask the legislature to quickly transmit the bill to Governor Pritzker and then encourage the governor to sign the extension expeditiously. The legislature has 30 days to transmit the bill to the governor, and he has up to 60 days to act on the measure. Our goal will be to have the bill signed prior to the current July 1 effective date.