Financial Industry Leaders Commit to Implementing IFX Specifications into their E-Business Architectures

Press Releases

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

Financial Industry Leaders Commit to Implementing IFX Specifications into their E-Business Architectures

Alexandria, Va., February 19, 2003 -- The Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum is witnessing widespread adoption of its multi-functional Extensible Markup Language (XML) based specification that supports numerous types of financial transactions. With today's publication of IFX Version 1.4, which incorporates new features to support in ATM, POS and other financial channels, the IFX specification is emerging as a significant contributor to today's and next generation systems and applications. Members of the IFX Forum have now formally ratified its adoption for the financial services industry.

Jim Piggot, NCR Corporation General Manager and Vice President, Software and Services, said, "Worldwide we are seeing that our banking customers increasingly recognize the benefits of integrating the self-service channel with other channels, such as a branch enhancement strategy, or as a means of rapidly deploying new services across all channels. IFX clearly fits the bill in terms of operational efficiency. At NCR, we've worked hard to make sure our APTRA(tm) software delivers the highest level of flexibility, efficiency and opportunities for our customers. NCR is pleased with the IFX Forum ratification and we are prepared to deliver IFX to the marketplace."

"Diebold is excited about v1.4 of IFX" said Ken Justice, VP of Product Marketing and Management. "The open, channel independent concept that IFX promotes is a perfect fit with Diebold's new Agilis(tm) family of open system cross-vendor software that is IFX ready. Diebold is excited about the concept of working with customers on the creation of open solutions using this technology."

"Our membership in the IFX Forum is a logical fit for Phoenix Interactive and our customers' choices are further augmented with the option of utilizing IFX with VISTAatm - our proven, multi-vendor ATM software. The spirit of interoperability and support for current and new online financial services through a single, standardized XML-based protocol meshes completely with our VISTAatm product and our open-systems philosophy," states John Spenler, Managing Director, Development and Delivery Services at Phoenix. "Our participation and commitment in the development of IFX version 1.4 to support ATMs is a highly active one given our level of expertise and recognition we receive as leaders in the ATM industry."

"e-Bank is excited about the v1.4 release as it aligns with our vision of a standard messaging interface for the financial services industry," said Tom Hetterscheidt, e-Bank VP of Product Management. "It is an excellent example of the type of value that is being contributed by both leading financial institutions and technology providers. We feel that leveraging IFX as a standard interface for our product provides us a significant competitive advantage."

The IFX specification is publicly available at http://www.IFXForum.org.

About the IFX Forum
The IFX Forum is made up of leading financial institutions, service providers and software vendors. Membership to 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; Credit Application Processing; and Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment. 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 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