Leading Financial Institutions & Standards Bodies Endorse IFX Specification

Press Releases

Questions/comments:
send email to info@ifxforum.org

Leading Financial Institutions & Standards Bodies Endorse IFX Specification

November 28, 2000, Alexandria, Va. - Financial institutions around the world in concert with several standards groups are working together to implement the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) framework in e-business environments and related industries. Spearheaded by BITS in 1999 to facilitate the sharing of financial data among banks, their customers and service providers, the IFX Forum builds on the industry experience of the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) and Integrion GOLD specifications, which are currently implemented by major financial institutions and service providers.

"The financial services industry holds the promise of enormous savings attributed to implementations of the IFX framework," said BITS CEO Catherine Allen. "IFX implementations will ultimately result in enhanced customer service. Customers will experience greater convenience, access and choice in a more dynamic and competitive Internet banking marketplace. IFX has particular functionality for aggregation of customer information, which will enhance security and privacy, as well."

This emerging IFX specification utilizes Extensible Markup Language (XML) for optimal business level information flow and drives widespread adoption of online financial services. Providing a foundation for users to build new Internet delivery channels and applications for customers, the IFX framework also supports Spectrum, a consortium of banks, and offers Bill Presentment & Payment functionality.

"Spectrum has made and continues to make a significant investment toward its successful implementation of the IFX specification," said Ronald A. Braco, Senior Vice President of Chase.com and Chairman of the Spectrum Board of Managers. "We believe IFX is the long-term, open and interoperable solution for data messaging in EBPP - clearly more robust than the currently implemented OFX specification. IFX offers enhanced benefit to the merchant and consumer while providing better customer transaction tracking functionality. More importantly, IFX is supported by the financial industry and the majority of technology providers supporting the EBPP market space."

Participation in the IFX Forum continues to grow dramatically with recent additions of member organizations, such as American Management Systems, Business Logic Corporation, Metavante and Unisys. In addition to the financial industry, a number of groups have expressed clear interest in cooperating with the Forum in XML message development and in utilizing the IFX architectural framework.

* In January 2001, the IFX Forum will launch the Brokerage Working Group to facilitate the needs of the brokerage industry.

* The student loan community, which is working to design one standard based on an XML format to be used by student lenders, universities and the U.S. Department of Education, is eyeing the IFX framework.

* The Mortgage Bankers Association of America's Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization is coordinating with the IFX Forum to standardize real estate finance transactions, with the goal of eliminating duplicative standards efforts in the loan applications area.

* Internationally, there is a great deal of interest from financial institutions in the Far East in using the IFX Forum's architectural framework.

The IFX Forum boasts an active membership of financial institutions and service providers, such as Bank of America, EDS, First Union Bank, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, and Wells Fargo Company, and receives managerial support from the Data Interchange Standards Association. An active player in the insurance industry, the IFX Forum formed a cooperative relationship with ACORD, a nonprofit insurance standards organization. ACORD sits on the IFX Forum Steering Committee and currently contributes property and casualty business messages based on the IFX XML architecture. The forum is organized into the following five working groups: Bill Presentment & Payment; Business Banking; Loan Application; Insurance; and Aggregation, which will launch January 2001.

"The IFX Forum's latest release, Version 1.0.1, will take the applicability of the IFX specification to a new class of transactions," said Jim Piggot, Vice President, Software and Services, Financial Solutions Division, NCR Corporation. "It will allow applications to be built for Web-enabled self-service terminals. Using a modern, industry standard protocol like IFX means self-service applications can finally be deployed in a manner consistent with Web practices and time scales."

The IFX Forum, open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a variety of benefits for financial services companies and their customers. IFX Forum members develop open and interoperable specifications that meet the financial services industry business requirements for serving consumer and corporate customers. The mission of the IFX Forum's open membership is to expedite the development and implementation of the IFX specification, which defines the business message format for the electronic exchange of data.

To learn more about the benefits of IFX Forum membership, please visit http://www.ifxforum.org/.

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