Regulation II governs debit-card interchange and routing under the Federal Reserve's statutory mandate. For covered issuers, it limits the interchange amount using the regulatory formula, with a conditional fraud-prevention adjustment. Exemptions for specified issuers and products mean that the cap is not a single universal price for all debit-card transactions.

Separate network-exclusivity and routing provisions require eligible debit transactions to have access to at least two unaffiliated networks and protect a merchant's ability to route transactions over available networks. These requirements address both the structure of network availability and contractual practices that could frustrate routing choice, including their application to card-not-present transactions.

The issuer's interchange receipt and the merchant's total acquiring charge are different amounts. Evaluating compliance therefore involves issuer status, product eligibility, transaction category, the fee component and available routing arrangements. The rule's pricing and competition provisions should be assessed separately even though both affect merchant acceptance economics.