[August 08, 2000] PricewaterhouseCoopers has announced Data Link for Intermediaries Markup Language (daliML) as a new XML-based protocol "for Internet-based electronic sharing of withholding and payment information. The protocol specification will initially target foreign intermediaries who choose to apply to the IRS for Qualified Intermediary status. daliML is the backbone of the Data Link for Intermediaries (DALI) system. daliML is based on the XML - Extensible Markup Language. XML is the emerging Internet standard for data sharing between applications. With XML you can organize elements based on a structural hierarchy. It is independent of any underlying programming language, transport mechanism or messaging protocol. Due to a lack of standardization on a set of technology tools, it takes a considerable amount of work for different business groups to communicate. daliML will facilitate inter-system communication. Using daliML and core technology to support XML-based information exchange the data can be readily exchanged between diverse sets of applications in different areas." Background is provided in the announcement: PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest professional services organization, is creating an electronic communications system and central repository called Data Link for Intermediaries (DALI) at the request of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and a consortium of global financial institutions including Goldman, Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Salomon Smith Barney - a member of Citigroup. DALI, among other things, will be a global, Internet-based, real-time communications tool that will help financial institutions meet new reporting requirements by facilitating the interaction between U.S. withholding agents and their non-U.S. intermediary customers. In addition, PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a communications protocol for DALI called daliML. The system will be piloted during the fourth quarter of 2000 and is scheduled to be fully operational by 2001. The Depository Trust Company, a subsidiary of DTCC, will host and operate the system. The protocol, daliML, is based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), the emerging Internet standard for data sharing between applications. This specification is expected to set the standard within the withholding and reporting area of the financial services industry. DALI leverages the innovation and [XML] standardization work from the Internet community; it treamlines data transmission procedures and minimizes processing delays and creates a standardized set of data elements. DALI will serve as a central document and data repository for required tax documents and core account information between US financial institutions and foreign intermediaries as prescribed by the 1441 Tax Regulations." For details, see the full text of the press release, "PricewaterhouseCoopers to Develop Electronic Solution for Global Financial Institutions to Handle Changes in U.S. Withholding Tax Regulations. PricewaterhouseCoopers-Developed Communications Protocol, daliML, Will Be Backbone to New System."
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[January 02, 2001] Note from PWC (shabnam.aryana@us.pwcglobal.com): "an updated version [1.4b] of the daliML specifications document has been posted on the DALI website..."
daliML Specification - By Eric Calhoun. 35 pages. "The following document should be considered as a work in progress. It has been submitted for review by the Systems Working Group of the DALI Consortium, the Depository Trust Clearing Corp. and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. This is a draft document that may be updated or replaced by another document at any time. The daliML specification is divided into four sections: (1) Overview, (2) Hierarchy Diagrams, (3) Document Type Definitions [DTDs], (4) Sample Documents. Feedback relating to the daliML specification can be sent via email to Benjamin Glicher, systems manager for the DALI project." [...] The DALI messages defined in this document conform to the DTDs comprising the DALI Markup Language (daliML) dialect of the Extensible Markup Language (XML), version 1.0. It should be noted that the DTDs were written to conform to current accepted XML specifications. They may ultimately be modified to take advantage of new and tools features, such as schema and data typing parsers, as they are officially adopted by the governing standards organizations. Although much thought has been given to the design of the daliML DTDs, it should be understood that the DTDs represented in this document are not immutable; the authors invite suggestions from the user community for their improvement and expansion. daliML DTDs have been split into two files: DaliCommon.dtd and DaliDocument.dtd. DaliCommon.dtd contains the definitions of individual elements, while DaliDocument.dtd contains the definitions of entire DALI messages. DaliDocument.dtd references the entities defined in DaliCommon.dtd. For ease of use, series of elements that are used repeatedly have been grouped into three 'include' type entities, DaliCommonA, DaliCommonB, and DaliCommonC. These entities are referenced in the DaliDocument.dtd using the notation '%DaliCommonX'. daliML's authors have decided to represent all data as data elements, as opposed to a mixture of attributes and data elements. The advantage of using attributes to define enumerated lists was felt to be outweighed by the disadvantage of having some parsers reject entire documents as 'invalid' on the basis of an 'bad' attribute referencing a single event in that document. In addition, in many cases where enumerated lists might be used, the DALI system will currently not perform edit checks at all; the datum in those cases is provided for readability only, and the system will simply store the datum as it is presented in the messages. The additional overhead required to edit check these fields was deemed to be unnecessary. Throughout the DTDs, we have defined many 'code-description' pairs. For example, the IncomeType element is comprised of two child elements: IncomeTypeCode, and an optional Description. In these cases, where necessary, the 'code' element will be edit-checked for appropriate values. The associated 'description' element is always optional and included for readability purposes only; description elements are never edit-checked for validity. Hierarchy diagrams have been included to illustrate the DTDs. These diagrams use standard Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) notation to denote required, repeatable, and optional fields..." [cache]
daliML DTD [as of 2000-08-08, approximated]
[August 08, 2000] "PricewaterhouseCoopers to Develop Electronic Solution for Global Financial Institutions to Handle Changes in U.S. Withholding Tax Regulations. PricewaterhouseCoopers-Developed Communications Protocol, daliML, Will Be Backbone to New System." - "PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest professional services organization, is creating an electronic communications system and central repository called Data Link for Intermediaries (DALI) at the request of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and a consortium of global financial institutions including Goldman, Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Salomon Smith Barney - a member of Citigroup. DALI, among other things, will be a global, Internet-based, real-time communications tool that will help financial institutions meet new reporting requirements by facilitating the interaction between U.S. withholding agents and their non-U.S. intermediary customers. In addition, PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a communications protocol for DALI called daliML. The system will be piloted during the fourth quarter of 2000 and is scheduled to be fully operational by 2001. The Depository Trust Company, a subsidiary of DTCC, will host and operate the system. The protocol, daliML, is based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), the emerging Internet standard for data sharing between applications. This specification is expected to set the standard within the withholding and reporting area of the financial services industry.
