Canadian merchant-protection code addressing fee disclosure, contract changes, routing choice and acceptance practices. Its scope covers credit and debit card acceptance.

The main requirements are to provide clear merchant disclosures, notice fee changes and respect routing and acceptance choices.

Payment pricing involves several distinct charges. Interchange is exchanged between issuing and acquiring sides, while a merchant's acceptance charge can also include scheme, processing and acquiring-service components. A cap on one component does not automatically cap the total price paid by the merchant or make all payment methods equally priced.

The transaction and participant categories determine the relevance of a pricing rule. Consumer and commercial products, debit and credit, domestic and cross-border transactions, and different issuer or scheme arrangements can receive different treatment. The unit of calculation also matters: a transaction-level limit and a weighted-average benchmark constrain prices in different ways.

The framework's practical effect must therefore be assessed against the actual fee component, card category and service arrangement. Transparency and routing or acceptance rules can influence competition alongside numerical limits. Published reforms can also use staged commencement dates, so an announced future cap should be distinguished from the requirement applying to a transaction today.

The instrument also addresses reporting and evidence: maintain compliance evidence and handle merchant complaints.