Can we charge a fee for credit card cash advances? The VISA rules state that we cannot add a surcharge to manual cash disbursements, “unless local law expressly requires that a Member be permitted to impose a surcharge.”

We are not aware of any Illinois law that “expressly requires that a Member be permitted to impose a surcharge” on cash transactions, as required by the VISA rule cited in your question.

As we discussed , the Illinois Banking Act does allow banks to charge any fee agreed to by a customer, but it does not require that banks be permitted to charge such fees. Section 5e of the Illinois Banking Act states that “a State bank may elect to contract for and receive interest, fees, and other charges” (with some provisos). 205 ILCS 5/5e. While we cannot provide any legal advice to the bank, and we are not familiar with VISA’s interpretation of the rule you cited, we do not believe that Section 5e of the Banking Act could be considered a law that “expressly requires” banks to “be permitted to impose a surcharge.”