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IFX Work Group Update

IFX Work Group Update - Summer 2005
ATM/POS Work Group |  Business Banking Work Group |  Branch Banking Services Work Group |  Web Services Work Group |   
 

ATM/POS
The ATM/POS WG has been working on ten proposals to include in IFX 1.7. Six of the proposals have been approved by the Architecture committee which leaves four proposals outstanding. Of the four outstanding proposals two have been submitted to Architecture and the other two proposals are anticipated to be submitted in the next few weeks.

[December 2004 Update]
The ATM/POS WG has been working on eleven proposals to include in IFX 1.7. Nine of the proposals have been approved by the Architecture committee and the other two proposals are anticipated to be submitted to the Architecture committee in early January.

[February 2005 Update]
Now that all of the ATM/POS WG proposals have been approved to be included in IFX 1.7 we have started working on updating the ATM/POS Implementation Guide. The version number of the ATM/POS Implementation Guide will be 1.7 to match IFX 1.7.

[July 2005 Update]
The ATM/POS WG has been focusing on revisions to the ATM/POS Implementation Guide to bring it into synchronization with the most recent IFX publication, IFX 1.7. Key additions will include a new section on Bill Payment, customer-defined 'Favorite' withdrawal transactions, and provisions for greater security tracking at an ATM client machine.
IFX currently supports ATM transactions for check cashing and passbook activities; future transactions are anticipated to include bundling multiple requests, inquiries to determine ATM fees, and handling payments via ATM transactions.

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Business Banking Work Group
The IFX Business Banking Work Group (BBWG) has been a very active participant in the IST Harmonisation (ISTH) initiatives addressing the content of the XML Credit Transfer Payment Initiation and Status messages. These messages have been incorporated in IFX Release 1.6 under the Batch Payment and Batch Payment Status objects. An implementation guide is in the process of being prepared by ISTH. BBWG will also participate in the upcoming sessions of ISTH to address content of advice and bank statement messages.

[December 2004 Update]
The IFX Business Banking Work Group (BBWG) continues to participate in the preparation of the ISTH message implementation guide for the XML Credit Transfer Initiation and Status messages. The kick-off meeting for the advice and bank statement messages was held in New York City on December 14-16, 2004.

[February 2005 Update]
The IFX Business Banking Work Group (BBWG) continues to participate in the ISTH initiative weekly meetings for the definition of the advice and bank statement messages.

[July 2005 Update]
The IFX Business Banking Work Group (BBWG) continues its main focus on the IST Harmonisation efforts working to bring together disparate methods for Bank to Customer cash management reporting. This group has undertaken the development of a multi-national transaction type code list to bring together codes used in advice and bank statement messages across different countries and regions in the international banking world.
At the same time, the IST working group is conducting an in-depth transaction content analysis for assessment of current practices related to advising of account-based cash movements to wholesale clients. The scope of this effort will cover debit and credit payments in all forms (paper and electronic), and cash movements related to financial contracts, reversals and adjustments, custody, and fees.
IFX BBWG will be participating in the various work efforts necessary for the IFX Forum publication of 2.0 Release.

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Branch Banking Services Work Group
The purpose of the IFX Branch Banking Services Working Group (BBSWG) is to ensure that the IFX Business Message Specification (BMS) includes all the messages necessary to perform transactions through the bank branch and call centre delivery channels. The BBSWG is accomplishing this by modifying existing IFX messages and message flows to support Branch Banking and Call Center transaction sets and functionality, as well as creating new messages that enable functionality not currently in the IFX BMS.

The BBSWG got off to a fast start working on two major, and a number of minor proposals, including one significant one to support Teller Totals and modifications to the current Identification Characteristics aggregate. In addition to creating these proposals, the group has been working on a list of teller and call centre transactions and infrastructure characteristics (e.g. account types and bank instrument types) that are being further defined. A GAP analysis on these transactions and infrastructure characteristics will assist the working group to set priorities for future IFX enhancements.

[December 2004 Update]
The Branch Banking Services Working Group (BBSWG) has been focusing on completion of two proposals. The first, Posting Totals provides the ability to maintain and report on Teller and other types of transaction posting totals. The second proposal provides a means to capture additional customer identification information used in a manually verified process (e.g. driver's license or passport at the teller line). Both of these proposals have been presented to the Architecture Committee for architectural and implementation feedback.

[February 2005 Update]
The Posting Totals and Customer Identification Verification proposals were both approved by the Architecture Committee and have been included in Version 1.7, available for public comment in April 2005. The BBSWG has begun to draft the Branch Services Implementation Guide, and is in the process of identifying and defining the next set of branch transactions to be mapped against the BMS. Results of the analysis will result in generation of new proposals and updates to the Branch Services Implementation Guide.

[July 2005 Update]
The Branch Banking Services Working Group (BBSWG) is focusing on transactions for Customer-Mediated Services (CMS) to support customer needs as they interact with a financial institution.
Work on the Branch Services Implementation Guide proceeds in earnest. The overview sections are completed and ready for review. The group is currently , with several significant sections completed for review, covering essential branch and call center/customer service center activities including:

Beginning with the October face-to-face meeting, the BBS work group expected to begin to coordinate Version 2.0 work efforts with the ATM-POS work group.

[February 2006 Update]

2005 Accomplishments

Finalized IFX BMS version 1.7, which included support for teller posting totals, customer identification information. Other miscellaneous enum values were also added.

Created an agreed upon priority transaction set for branch services.

Began working on a Branch Banking Services Implementation Guide for Version 1.7 of the BMS. We have completed drafts of Chapters 1 - 6. Chapters 7 and 8 identified the need to revisit the concept of a "customer" session and authentication. This, along with the recognition that the “customer” could be a different person or entity as defined above by the different transaction categories, led to many discussions regarding what is a session and who is the customer.

We spent the last quarter of the year working with the ATM/POS working group to better define the various levels of a session, with the objective of finding synergy between the needs in the branch and those of the ATM, to create a session that represents the entire transaction roundtrip from the ATM.

2006 Plans

Where are we?

Based on our review last year, the BBSWG has decided that the gap between Version 1.7 of the IFX Business Message Specification, and what is required for a Branch Banking Services implementation are:

The definitions and ability to successfully support different levels of sessions associated with the branch environment

The lack of a complete customer/involved party and FI products/services relationship model within the BMS.

We believe that upon completion of these two major design concepts, development of an implementation guide for branch banking services will not be as difficult at the creation of the ATM/POS Implementation Guide, as the ATM/POS working group has already defined most of the financial transactions.

Tactical plans

Create a proposal with ATM/POS working group and obtain Architecture Committee approval for new Session Model. This will be an IFX 2.0 proposal.

Create a proposal with the Business Banking working group, while obtaining consensus of ATM/POS working group, and obtain Architecture Committee approval for new Customer/Interested Party / Account/services relationship Model. This will also be an IFX 2.0 proposal.

Begin working on the IFX 2.0 BBSWG Implementation Guide. We will not be creating a Version 1.7 Implementation Guide.

The BBSWG group will evaluate and provide BMS proposals against the current transaction definitions to ensure that the entire transaction set we have defined is included in Version 2.0.

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Web Services Work9ng Group
The Web Services Workiing Group is actively moving forward with the work proposed at the face-to-face meetings in Miami, FL in early 2004. This work includes the following items:

This work is targeted to be complete by the end of January, 2005.

[December 2004 Update]
The Web Services Working Group is continuing to resolve issues with the reference implementations and the WSDL definitions.

[July 2005 Update]
The Web Services Working Group (WSWG) has been working diligently on reference implementations, and is in the process of completing and testing four different implementations on representative platforms (Java, Windows, WSDL). As a part of this process, the Web Services Working Group has also defined Web Services Description Language (WSDL) schema, and names and descriptions to comply with requirements for Web Services. Deliverables will include Implementation Guides for each of the implementations, with additional Web pages available soon that describe how IFX specifications can be used by Web Services.


In the meantime, the work group has separated the full Version 1.70 schema into modularized schema files, with more than 300+ schema files segregated by objects, messages, and financial services.
In looking forward to IFX Version 2.0, and enhanced business message support with a normalized approach to XML schema, a proposal for Naming Conventions and IFX namespaces has been presented to the Architecture Committee for a vote of approval.

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