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IFX Version 2.2 Now Publicly Available

Enhancements Focus on Increased Usability in 21st Century Financial Services

WAKEFIELD, Mass., USA – Jan. 30, 2012 – The Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX; http://www.ifxforum.org) Forum announced today that it has published Version 2.2 of IFX, its open, interoperable standard for financial data exchange, and it is available at no charge at http://bms.ifxforum.org/.

The IFX Forum is an international non-profit industry association whose mission is to develop and promote the adoption of the IFX specification. The new version's enhancements expand the applicability of IFX to new scenarios and situations, such as mobile and Internet banking, making it more flexible and useful for financial services in the 21st century. Operational improvements and some corrections to existing material were also made.

Important extensions to IFX in Version 2.2 include:

Marketing support, such as features for incorporating and tracking marketing campaigns and offers
Valuable specific additions, such as provisions for recurring payments and issuing alerts to account holders
Administrative enhancements, such as loss tracking and support for card inventory management
Provision for parent-child account-to-account relationships
Added functionality for account pricing, delinquency tracking, and portfolio segmentation of customers and accounts

"IFX 2.2 is a significant release," said Richard P. Urban, President of the IFX Forum. "Our Working Groups, particularly the Cards Management and Servicing group, and Architecture Committee have put in a great deal of time and effort to augment the specification with meaningful content. Continued development of the IFX specification further enhances the benefits of joining the IFX Forum."

IFX 2.2 continues the Forum’s commitment to a business-first, service-oriented approach to standards development. Hundreds of organizations worldwide have used IFX, representing -- as does the IFX Forum membership -- a cross-section of the worldwide financial services industry. IFX adopters range from large multinational corporations to small focused companies and self-employed consultants, from banks to vendors to service providers, from all regions of the globe.

The IFX Forum's membership includes organizations from a dozen countries on four continents. In addition to developing IFX, the Forum actively engages in international standards activity, including longtime liaison efforts with ISO and contributions to ISO 20022, a collaborative effort with BIAN (the Banking Industry Architecture Network) focusing on interoperability in payment execution and a leadership role in the Remittance Coalition set up by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The Forum welcomes additional members to join in all its activities. More information can be found at http://www.ifxforum.org/join/.

About the IFX Forum
Founded in 1997, the Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum is an international not-for-profit industry association whose mission is to develop IFX and promote its adoption as an open, interoperable standard for financial data exchange, suitable for use by all sectors of the financial services industry. The IFX Forum also promotes interoperability of industry standards by working cooperatively with other standards organizations and consortia.

Forum membership is open to organizations interested in contributing to the development of open financial standards. Forum members include financial institutions, hardware, software and service firms, and related non-profit groups. The IFX Forum is currently organized into the following Working Groups: ATM/POS; Branch Banking Services; Business Banking; Card Management & Servicing, and Liaison & Interoperability. IFX Forum Working Groups, in concert with an Architecture Committee to coordinate their efforts, develop open Internet-compatible messages for all sectors of the financial services industry. To learn more about IFX Forum standards or the benefits of IFX Forum membership, please visit www.IFXForum.org.