IFX FORUM BROADENS MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES, LOWERS DUES TO EXPAND PARTICIPATION

Press Release

IFX FORUM BROADENS MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES, LOWERS DUES TO EXPAND PARTICIPATION

Web Services Working Group Expects First Deliverable at Year's End

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Oct. 14, 2003 – The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum has unveiled a new membership structure with expanded membership categories and lower dues, in order to broaden participation in its development of open financial standards using XML.

"To make sure our work addresses the needs of all constituencies in the financial services sector, we need the broadest possible participation in our efforts," said Richard P. Urban IFX Forum president. "This new tiered structure will make our organization more accessible, and thus will attract a larger group of companies and individuals to participate in our working groups where the standards definitions are formulated."

Previously, the Forum had one class of voting membership, with annual dues of $10,000. The IFX Forum's new schedule of membership categories and fees is as follows:

Corporate membership, open to all, has annual dues of $7,500, and carries full benefits and voting rights.
Small business membership, with dues of $4,995, is open to corporations and individuals with revenue under $50 million (for banks, gross assets of $1 billion or less). Voting rights are included.
Individual membership has dues of $495. Individual members are non-voting but may participate fully in the standards definition work.
Advisory membership is designated by the IFX Forum Steering Committee in exchange for in-kind contributions and is non-voting. This class of membership facilitates cooperation with other standards organizations.

All member representatives are eligible to participate in IFX Forum working groups. Specific details of the new membership rules, benefits and fees can be found at http://www.ifxforum.org/ifxforum.org/mbr/rules.cfm.

In addition, the IFX Forum's most recently formed working group, the Web Services Working Group, has announced that it plans to release its first deliverable at the end of this calendar year, an assessment of how the IFX specification can be used in a Web services architecture. Web services are the interfaces that are involved in Internet application-to-application programming, a fast-growing area of technology in financial services.

The Web Services Working Group's mission is to show how the IFX standard schemas and messages fit into the Web services infrastructure, to avoid incompatible implementations of Web services. The group is working to provide comprehensive guidance on the use of IFX with emerging Web services models, thereby ensuring the stability, flexibility and longevity of the IFX Business Message Specification. Future deliverables will include compiling necessary changes to the specification to support additional Web services features and evolving architectures.

"The Web Services Working Group has been making a full investigation of the Web services architecture that's prevalent in the marketplace, especially with respect to usage of the current IFX specification," said Sid Sidner of ACI Worldwide, Chair of the Web Services Working Group. "We are evaluating how the IFX 1.4 message specification compares to today's Web Service architectures from groups such as OASIS, W3C, and the ad hoc Microsoft IBM WS-* specifications, with an eye to advising our members and the public."

About the IFX Forum

The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum is a non-profit standards-developing organization made up of leading financial institutions, service providers and software vendors. The IFX Forum's mission is to facilitate the development and maintenance of specifications and standards necessary for interoperable and interactive financial exchange.

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