There have been attempts in the past to develop Interchange Agreements (IA's) at the market wide level to cover emerging electronic processing. The most recent examples where such IA's have been drafted are during the Kinnect project, the A&S Strategy work and the electronic placing pilot (G6) project.

None of these IA's are in use, although it is likely that some parties used the placing pilot agreement as the basis for drafting their own bilateral IA's. In the placing pilot case not all parties felt that an IA was necessary and, until now, low messaging volume and the predominance of 1-way messaging only has reduced the urgency of the issue.

With the progress of the Electronic Placing and the Endorsements projects the topic is once again pertinent.

In response to this the MRG is publishing the following paper:

The paper is intended to frame the discussion of what commercial, legal and technical agreement frameworks may be required at the market wide level to support electronic processing. The MRG does not currently plan to conduct any more work in this area, but is providing this information in order to help firms or suppliers who need to develop IAs.

The following resources and examples may also provide food for thought. They are not presented here necessarily as ideal examples of IA's nor is any recommendation being made as to what content should be contained in an IA. This will depend on each situation.

Kinnect Interchange Agreement working documents:

• 
  Interchange Agreement (Jun 2004)
• Interchange Terms & Legal Effects - Kinnect Consultation Paper (Apr 2005)
• Kinnect Messages: Legal Effects Instrument (Apr 2005)
• Kinnect Interchange Terms: Irrevocability Of Underwriter’s Contractual Offer (Dec 2005)
• Discussion Draft: 1.12.05, Kinnect: Key Propositions For The Market (Dec 2005)