STRATEGIC PARTNERS
December 5, 2001
ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum, a consortium of financial institutions, service providers and software vendors, has completed Version 1.2 of the IFX Specification, a publicly available XML financial messaging protocol made up of a framework and an interactive set of messages that support multiple types of financial services.
Version 1.2 offers new features for next generation applications, most notably in the emerging areas of business-to-business banking and payments and intelligent ATM networks, according to an IFX Forum news release.
The IFX Specification is updated twice a year.
"The IFX Framework is designed so that new features can be quickly included in the specification while still maintaining strict controls needed in a public, open standard,' said Michael Weiss, chairman of the IFX Architecture Committee, "This provides significant value to the financial community in two ways. One, the methodology for additions and modifications to the specification is streamlined to support pretty strict time to market considerations. Second, parties who wish to participate have the support and guidance from industry leaders that make up the membership body of the IFX Forum.'
"We believe that the future of ATM networks is in the ability to offer more personalized services and enriched customer care through Web-based ATM terminals," said Jim Piggot, software and services vice president of NCR's Financial Solutions division. "We believe that leveraging off of a solid XML messaging standard such as IFX is fundamental to achieving this. IFX helps us not only to deliver innovations in traditional ATM functions but also provides a method to implement new sets of features that go towards a richer customer experience.'
Bank of America and SAP will use the IFX v1.2 specification to enable the transmission of financial information between SAP and Bank of America systems.
Ken Wood, director of Global eCommerce Strategy Development for Global Treasury Services at Bank of America, said, "What attracts us to IFX is the fact that it is a public standard and contains all of the fundamental qualities necessary to support open interface development, which is a key component of the Bank of America e-business strategy.'
Andrea Anderson, SAP's director of Product Management, said, "What draws us to the opportunity of participating in the creation of this latest version of the IFX Specification is the openness and the extensibility of the IFX message standard and access to the pool of member experts in the financial community.'
IFX Specification Version 1.2 is available for download at www.IFXForum.org.
