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License Statement IFX Version 2.2 | IFX Version 2.1 | IFX Version 2.0 | IFX Version 1.8.1

IFX Version 2.2

IFX 2.2 expands 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 have also been 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

All interested parties are invited to review the specification in database format at http://bms.ifxforum.org/ and provide their feedback to the IFX Forum. Send comments to ifxversion2feedback@ifxforum.org.

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IFX Version 2.1

Key updates in IFX 2.1 included:

Support of the latest ISO 20022 payment initiation messages and improved mapping of IFX data to ISO 20022
Significant improvements to support for services-oriented architecture (SOA), including user-definable services and improved message header support for routing to internal and external service nodes
Additional support for card management capabilities, which have greatly expanded the definition of the IFX Card object (credit, debit, rewards, etc.)
Improved support of transaction authorizations, including multiple party authorizations
Important enhancements for foreign currency conversions and alternate currencies in payment scenarios
Improved definition of recurring models for payments, transfers and orders
Finalized list of deprecated items from IFX Version 1.x

IFX 2.1 also fixed errata in 2.0.

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IFX Version 2.0

2.0 is an architecturally improved version of IFX, including adaptation to SOA, a consistently applied object model and important new content. IFX Version 2 continues the Forum's commitment to a business-first, service-oriented approach to standards development. It deals with shortcomings in Version 1 that can only be effectively addressed by breaking backward compatibility.

Note that the IFX Forum recognizes that stability in a standard is imperative; therefore, support for IFX Version 1 will continue for the foreseeable future, including enhancements and additional content driven by the Working Groups.

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IFX Version 1.8.1

Download Microsoft Compiled Help Format
Download HTML Format

Version 1.8.1 is a minor release of the IFX Business Message Specification (BMS), Version 1, that contains errata and minor content updates for the specification. The content addresses corrections needed following the distribution of the specification in its new format (see below).

Content from the ATM/POS Working Group includes some corrections and a proposal for implementing full support for Track 3 Magnetic Stripe processing.

Additionally, in order to accomplish the XSD generation (available to IFX members only) construction of requests and responses within the database application has been changed.

The change to each request and response is as follows:

All header elements are moved to a block
All non-header elements are moved to a block
These two blocks are the siblings and the only elements of the request/response

Note that, like the prior release, Version 1.8.1 of the BMS is distributed in a new download format, replacing the Microsoft Word format previously used. The Microsoft Compiled Help Manual (CHM) format provides improved search capabilities within the specification. Alternatively, the specification is available as a collection of HTML files that can be viewed with any current browser.

Access to IFX Version 1.8.1 in database format is also available at http://bms.ifxforum.org/.

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Information about older versions of IFX is located in an archive.

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