IFX FORUM NAMES FIDELITY TO BOARD, ELECTS NEW OFFICERS AT ANNUAL MEETING IN TORONTO

Press Release

IFX FORUM NAMES FIDELITY TO BOARD, ELECTS NEW OFFICERS AT ANNUAL MEETING IN TORONTO

IFX Version 1.7 Approved and Published

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – May 23, 2005 – At its annual meeting held April 25-29 in Toronto, the Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum elected a Board of Directors and slate of Officers for 2005, and approved Version 1.7 of the IFX Specification for public release. The IFX Forum is a not-for-profit standards-developing organization working to develop a robust framework for the electronic business-to-business exchange of data among financial service institutions around the world.

Lee Hou of Fidelity Information Systems was elected to the Forum's Board, joining re-elected Directors Rick Duvall of ACI Worldwide, Josh Lee of Microsoft Corporation, and Mark Tiggas of Wells Fargo Company. Continuing Board members are William Bird of eFunds Corporation, Anne Cant of NCR, Ltd., Susan Colles of Bank of America, Frank Eaton of Sun Microsystems and James Trocmé of Diebold, Incorporated.

Serving as officers for 2005 are Rick Duvall, as Chairman; Anne Cant, as Treasurer; and Josh Lee, as Secretary. Richard Urban continues as President of the Forum.

As is customary at the Forum's quarterly meetings, the program in Toronto also included hands-on sessions for the Forum's several technical working groups. Representatives of several prospective member companies were welcomed as participants, to "test drive" the Forum's activities before formally joining.

"Our gathering in Toronto was highly productive," said Urban. "We had an excellent turnout, with a number of prospects joining us for working sessions. I'm also pleased that Fidelity has agreed to take a high profile role in the Forum, in addition to contributing their technical experience with IFX implementation."

"Fidelity Information Systems has made a public commitment to IFX as the enterprise messaging standard on which we build our banking services and integration utilities. We expect this will increase interoperability among financial systems, which will promote wider adoption of the IFX standard in the marketplace," said Fidelity's Hou. "As a Board member, I look forward to helping set the optimal course for the Forum, for IFX, and for the financial services industry."

The Forum's membership also approved Version 1.7 of the IFX Business Message Specification for publication. New features in this version include additional IFX messages and modifications to existing messages/message flows to support branch banking and call center transaction sets and functionality, the first deliverables from the Forum's Branch Banking Services Working Group. The document is available for download at no charge from the Forum's Web site, at www.ifxforum.org.

The Toronto meeting was a great success, with close to 60 individuals in attendance, including representatives from 12 non-member companies. Attendees came from Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Taiwan, Central America, and the United States. “This excellent turnout is truly a testament to the effort the IFX Forum has applied to make the standard practical for financial institutions around the world,” said Urban.

Quarterly face-to-face meetings are an important platform for the Forum’s working groups’ accomplishments, though activity continues in between meetings by other means. The next members meeting will take place in Seattle during the week of July 25. Details will be available at www.ifxforum.org.

About the IFX Forum
Membership in the IFX Forum is open to anyone interested in contributing to the development of open financial standards that harness the power of XML. The IFX Forum is currently organized into the following Working Groups: ATM/POS; Business Banking; Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment; and Web Services. 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.

For additional information:
email info@ifxforum.org
Phone: +1 (781) 876-8811
Fax: +1 (781) 224-1239