Merchants Supports New Electronic Surety Bonding Guidelines

May 21, 2021

The Surety & Fidelity Association of America (SFAA) and the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP) recently issued revised guidelines on electronic surety bonding and digital signature best practices for bond obligees and public officials seeking to improve procurement processes. The goal of the guidelines is to ensure bond stakeholders reap the benefits of streamlined processes, reduced redundancies and increased productivity.

“Demand for more digitized workflows has accelerated the surety industry’s transition to electronic bonding,” said SFAA President and CEO Lee Covington. “Public agencies need to move away from exclusively requiring hardcopies of bonds with wet-ink signatures and impressed seals and adopt new technologies allowing for a more efficient electronic bonding process. The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the urgency and immediate need to move to ebonding.”

Merchants is committed to making e-bonding easy! We’ve made this transition seamless by accepting electronic signatures for most contract general indemnity agreements and commercial indemnity agreements on commercial bonds up to $200,000.

By transitioning to e-signatures, we have been able to quickly and efficiently expedite the indemnity agreement with minimal effort from our agents or indemnitors. For questions on these new guidelines visit Merchants’ Industry Resources page or contact your Merchants underwriter.