The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released the Institutional Trade Matching and Settlement rule, National Instrument (NI) 24-101, on January 12, 2007, to improve institutional trade processing and settlement efficiency. The ultimate goal is to reduce operational, market and credit risks and costs associated with unmatched trades. It requires entities subject to the rule only to open an account (or for existing clients, only to execute a trade) if each trade-matching party has entered into a trade-matching agreement with or provided a trade-matching statement to each other. The onus is on dealers and advisors to obtain an agreement or statement from their counterparties by October 1, 2007.