"The goal of the IFX ('Interactive Financial Exchange') Forum is to efficiently and effectively facilitate the development of a global specification for an open and interoperable online financial services marketplace. The IFX Forum, a non-profit organization that is open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a wide variety of benefits for financial services companies, service providers, information technology companies and the customers of each. The IFX Forum focuses on providing leadership, structure, and process for the development, promotion, use and adoption of the IFX Specification, which defines the business message format and transmission protocol for the electronic exchange of data. The IFX Specification is intended to drive and accelerate the widespread adoption of an online financial services standard, providing a foundation upon which the financial services industry can exploit electronic delivery channels to rapidly deliver value added applications and financial services products to consumers. IFX 1.0 was based on the 'InteroperaBILL' initiative. Financial institutions, technology providers and billers participated in the effort to develop business-level technical requirements to build an interoperable, online bill presentment and payment solution. As part of the 'InteroperaBILL' initiative, the National Automated Clearinghouse Association's Council on Electronic Billing and Payment, created and published business guidelines for the developing online bill presentment and payment market. The initial IFX business message specification (IFX 1.0) was submitted to the IFX Forum in April 1999. Subsequently on January 3, 2000 version 1.0.1 of the IFX business specification was released for a 60-day public review and comment. The Specification is available in both MS WORD and Adobe PDF formats."
[September 20, 2001] From the version 1.2 IFX specification: "The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Specification provides a robust and scalable framework for the exchange of financial data and instructions independent of a particular network technology or computing platform. The information-sharing potential of IFX has been designed to support communication not only between a Financial Institution and its customers, but also between a Financial Institution and its Service Providers, between Financial Institutions, and eventually directly between customers (e.g., 'electronic wallet'). This specification supports existing and emerging financial services and is extensible and customizable for future growth. The IFX Specification has been developed as a cooperative industry effort among major Financial Institutions, Service Providers, and information technology vendors to these institutions and their customers in the small business and consumer markets. This specification builds on previous industry experience, including the OFX and Gold specifications that are currently implemented by major Financial Institutions and Service Providers to enable the electronic exchange of financial data between them and their customers. The IFX Specification provides a comprehensive specification for new financial industry services and software while providing a common strategic direction for the evolution of existing products and services. The IFX Specification provides Financial Institutions, their Service Provider vendors, and financial software developers for the small business and consumer markets with a generalized model for financial industry data communications. This generalized model consists of two parts: (1) A business-level Message Specification and its associated Data Dictionary, which are contained in Volumes 1 and 2, and (2) Implementation specifications, which are available separately at the IFX Forum website..."
[Spring 1999] "The IFX specification highlights work completed by the BITS-sponsored InteroperaBILL Technical Working Group, which consisted of a range of industry participants, including billers, financial institutions and technology companies." The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) business message specification for open electronic commerce "builds on previous industry experience including the Open Financial Exchange and GOLD specifications that are currently implemented by Financial Institutions and service providers to enable electronic exchange of financial data between themselves and their customers. The InteroperaBILL effort of which IFX is a part "leverages the OFX message protocols initially developed by CheckFree, Intuit and Microsoft. As of Spring 1999, OXF and its related standards are being migrated to IFX: the 'Architecture Development' calls for the working group to produce an IFX implementation specification based upon XML (Extensible Markup Language). Ken Hobday (VP Product Strategy, CheckFree Corporation) is said to be co-chairing the IFX XML implementation working group for IFX with Microsoft.
"The IFX Specification supports financial communications between: Banks, Brokerage houses (future), Service Providers , Financial advisors (future), Small businesses, Consumers. The IFX Specification allows Financial Institutions to support customers using a broad range of client devices, including, but not limited to: World Wide Web access using any standard Web Browser software, Personal Computers with Personal Financial Manager (PFM) software, Voice Response Units (VRUs) that provide Bank by Phone services, Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), and Consumer Handheld Devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or Mobile Telephones with data capabilities.
References:
Interactive Financial Exchange Business Message Specification. Version 1.4.0. PDF format.
Interactive Financial Exchange Business Message Specification Version 1.3.0. IFX Forum, Inc. June 10, 2002. 497 pages.
[January 21, 2003] "The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum Releases for Public Review Version 1.4 of its Specification." - "The Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum released for public review today the latest version of the IFX specification, Version 1.4, which incorporates new features to support ATM, POS and other financial channels. This new version builds on IFX's multi-channel capabilities, such as enabling customers to deposit, withdraw and transfer funds, and allows financial institutions to exchange essential information with their customers, their service providers, and other financial institutions. 'We found the IFX Forum to be very receptive to our proposal to leverage IFX standards for ATM systems,' said Rick DuVall, ACI Worldwide Senior Product Manager and Vice-Chair of the IFX ATM/POS Working Group. 'The resulting message specification brings more openness and flexibility to the ATM industry, allowing financial institutions to apply a common message standard to support not only multi-vendor ATM environments but also other delivery channels. This simplifies operations for our customers and, through the use of XML technology, allows them to reduce time to market for new features and functions'... The public review period ends on Feb. 14, 2003. Visit http://www.ifxforum.org to view, download, and comment on v1.4. Members and nonmembers alike are invited to attend the next face-to-face IFX Forum Meeting February 4-6, 2003, in Denver where comments received on IFX v1.4 will be reviewed and work on the next version (1.5) will continue. IFX v1.5 is slated to include such functions as pre-paid phone recharge capabilities, person-to-person payments, and several check-related and money order purchase features..."
Announcement 2002-06-11: "The Interactive Financial Exchange Forum Publishes XML Specification Version 1.3"
Announcement 2001-09-20: "The Interactive Financial Exchange Forum Announces the Availability of IFX Specification Version 1.2 for Public Review."
Interactive Financial Exchange Business Message Specification. Version 1.2.0.4. September 9, 2001. 424 pages. [.ZIP, cache]
Interactive Financial Exchange DTD. Version 1.2. 9/10/2001.
IFX Orientation and Training Presentation [PowerPoint]
Announcement: "The Interactive Financial Exchange Forum Releases Enhanced XML Specification for Consumer Banking Community." [source]
IFX Business Message Specification version 1.1.0. See DTD and XML Schema; specification is a 4.3 MB Word (.doc) document. [cache]
IFX Draft v1.0.1 Specification and DTD - Reference Page
[December 11, 2001] "Clarke American First in Industry to Implement IFX XML Standard." - "Clarke American, the fastest growing provider of checks and related products and services, deployed its first XML interface partner, WESCOM Credit Union, using the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum's extensible mark-up language (XML) standard. This solution, using the IFX XML standard, allows the institution to datastream directly to Clarke American's enterprise system via the Internet. The IFX Forum, which administers the XML standard, is a non-profit organization charged with developing an open and interoperable specification on a robust XML framework for electronic business-to-business financial data exchange. Clarke American, who is a member of the IFX Forum and active in a special sub-committee, assisted in developing the most recent XML standard. In December of 2000, Clarke American wrote an initial tag to allow the transfer of data to add check order records. Since that time they have worked with IFX to develop 15 additional tags which will make the check ordering capability completely IFX compliant... Use of XML also reduces the cost of duplication, both from a data entry and customer service standpoint, by allowing active updates from both the institution and Clarke American. If Clarke American receives a change of address request, that information can be confirmed and updated into both Clarke American's system and the institution's system simultaneously..."
[November 29, 2000] "Leading Financial Institutions and Standards Bodies Endorse Interactive Financial Exchange Specification." - "Financial institutions around the world in concert with several standards groups are working together to implement the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) framework in e-business environments and related industries. Spearheaded by BITS in 1999 to facilitate the sharing of financial data among banks, their customers and service providers, the IFX Forum builds on the industry experience of the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) and Integrion GOLD specifications, which are currently implemented by major financial institutions and service providers. This emerging IFX specification utilizes Extensible Markup Language (XML) for optimal business level information flow and drives widespread adoption of online financial services. Providing a foundation for users to build new Internet delivery channels and applications for customers, the IFX framework also supports Spectrum, a consortium of banks, and offers Bill Presentment & Payment functionality. Participation in the IFX Forum continues to grow dramatically with recent additions of member organizations, such as American Management Systems, Business Logic Corporation, Metavante and Unisys. In addition to the financial industry, a number of groups have expressed clear interest in cooperating with the Forum in XML message development and in utilizing the IFX architectural framework. (1) In January 2001, the IFX Forum will launch the Brokerage Working Group to facilitate the needs of the brokerage industry. (2) The student loan community, which is working to design one standard based on an XML format to be used by student lenders, universities and the U.S. Department of Education, is eyeing the IFX framework. (3) The Mortgage Bankers Association of America's Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization is coordinating with the IFX Forum to standardize real estate finance transactions, with the goal of eliminating duplicative standards efforts in the loan applications area. (4) Internationally, there is a great deal of interest from financial institutions in the Far East in using the IFX Forum's architectural framework. The IFX Forum boasts an active membership of financial institutions and service providers, such as Bank of America, EDS, First Union Bank, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, and Wells Fargo Company, and receives managerial support from the Data Interchange Standards Association. An active player in the insurance industry, the IFX Forum formed a cooperative relationship with ACORD, a nonprofit insurance standards organization. ACORD sits on the IFX Forum Steering Committee and currently contributes property and casualty business messages based on the IFX XML architecture. The forum is organized into the following five working groups: Bill Presentment & Payment; Business Banking; Loan Application; Insurance; and Aggregation, which will launch January 2001. The IFX Forum, open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a variety of benefits for financial services companies and their customers. IFX Forum members develop open and interoperable specifications that meet the financial services industry business requirements for serving consumer and corporate customers. The mission of the IFX Forum's open membership is to expedite the development and implementation of the IFX specification, which defines the business message format for the electronic exchange of data." The IFX XML Specifications are available online.
[September 28, 2000] "IFX Expands Working Groups to Include Loan Applications." - "The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum announced today the addition of a new working group focusing on loan applications. This group will address the key issues and opportunities that lenders and businesses face in supporting credit evaluation and funding in an e-commerce environment, and is led by Dennis Warnke of Credit Online, Inc. The intent is to facilitate the movement of all types of credit transactions back and forth between originators and credit grantors by defining new transaction types for the IFX message handler and defining Extensible Markup Language (XML) Document Type Definitions (DTDs) for data transport. 'The addition of a Loan Application Working Group opens the doors to faster transactions and better service,' said IFX chairman Mark Tiggas of Wells Fargo. 'IFX involvement in loan application standards will enable companies to significantly lower payment risk and decrease loan turnaround time from days to minutes.' The scope of the initial effort of this IFX working group will include automobile, mortgage and student lending. Subsequent efforts will focus on other loans and credit types, and documentation handling. By defining a standard set of semantic terms, the Loan Application Working Group will enable efficient communications related to credit evaluation and funding to those who implement the IFX standard. This working group will be responsible for defining enhancements to the established IFX Business Messages, as well as adding these changes to the IFX XML DTD for data transport. Three years ago, the standard method for forwarding loan applications to credit grantors was to fax a handwritten application to a credit processing center. The application was entered at the processing center during normal or extended work hours with a decision returned via facsimile, hours or even days, later. The emergence of the Internet as a distribution channel for goods and services is increasing the pressure on businesses to respond quickly to customer requests for goods and services. For high value goods, this often means either knowing the customer you are doing business with, or having the ability to evaluate the payment risk of prospective customers at the point of sale, or having the ability to transfer credit risk to an on-line lender. E-commerce is demanding that credit granting institutions receive credit applications electronically and respond within minutes, 24 hours per day, seven days a week. IFX standards using XML help make this kind of immediate customer service happen. The IFX Forum, open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a variety of benefits for financial services companies and their customers, and focuses on promoting the development and adoption of the IFX specification. The IFX Forum members develop open and interoperable specifications that meet the Financial Services Industry business requirements for serving consumer and corporate customers. The mission of the IFX Forum's open membership is to expedite the development and implementation of the IFX specification, which defines the business message format for the electronic exchange of data." [...] "The IFX Forum, a non-profit organization that is open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a wide variety of benefits for financial services companies, service providers, information technology companies and the customers of each. The IFX Forum focuses on providing leadership, structure, and process for the development, promotion, use and adoption of the IFX Specification, which defines the business message format and transmission protocol for the electronic exchange of data. The IFX Specification is intended to drive and accelerate the widespread adoption of an online financial services standard, providing a foundation upon which the financial services industry can exploit electronic delivery channels to rapidly deliver value added applications and financial services products to consumers. IFX 1.0 was based on the 'InteroperaBILL' initiative. Financial institutions, technology providers and billers participated in the effort to develop business-level technical requirements to build an interoperable, online bill presentment and payment solution. As part of the "InteroperaBILL" initiative, the National Automated Clearinghouse Association. s Council on Electronic Billing and Payment, created and published business guidelines for the developing online bill presentment and payment market."
[Junn 02, 2000] "IFX Specification Offers XML Framework for Global Financial Exchange." - "The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum approved for publication its much anticipated Extensible Markup Language (XML)-compatible specification, Version 1.0.1, at the IFX Forum's recent annual meeting in Boston. Version 1.0.1, which is now available for download at www.ifxforum.org, stems from the tremendous work performed on its predecessor, Version 1.0, created under the auspices of BITS to promote interoperability for electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP). This new specification is ready for implementation by financial institutions and industry solutions providers and offers a framework for the interoperable exchange of financial data between financial institutions, service providers, billers and customers. Additional enhancements to the specification in support of business banking functions are also in progress. In conjunction with the first annual IFX Forum annual membership April meeting held in Boston, the forum hosted an information session, which included 'specification walk-through' and implementation seminars on April 26 and 27, respectively. The audience, which included more than 70 individuals representing companies in the financial services industry, exhibited a keen interest in both the implementation of version 1.0.1 and future direction for the IFX specification. To date, the IFX Forum is comprised of more than 30 corporate members. 'IFX 1.0.1 provides a comprehensive specification for new and existing financial industry services and software,' said Kit Needham, senior director of BITS and chair of the IFX Forum. 'Supporting a wide range of financial activities and entities, this specification will ultimately stimulate the adoption of and enhance online banking services through the availability of a diverse set of consumer and financial institution applications.' In addition to providing a comprehensive business message specification for financial services, IFX 1.0.1 includes a document type definition (DTD) for its XML representation and a corresponding data dictionary. Financial institutions, service providers and technology vendors can start implementing their applications with assistance from the XML guidelines and IFX data dictionary. 'The financial services industry requires rapid deployment and great interoperability of e-business applications,' said Melanie Rose, director of financial services solutions, IBM Software Group. 'IBM supports open standards, including XML, as key to meeting those demands, and we applaud the publication of the XML framework for global financial exchange as a great step towards that goal.' 'We are excited by the release of the first implementable version of IFX,' said Douglas S. Thompson, President and CEO of Just in Time Solutions and member of the IFX Forum board of directors. 'IFX 1.0.1 represents a tremendous body of work from many industry and technology leaders, and demonstrates real-world progress towards a universal standard for the EBPP industry. We expect this release will further accelerate the adoption of standards-based solutions already prevalent in the industry'. Offering a common set of business messages, Version 1.0.1 defines the information and semantics required in message requests and responses. The initial IFX model provides financial institutions, their service providers and financial software developers with a business-level message specification, its data dictionary, and implementation specifications. In addition, the specification enables financial institutions to support customers using a vast range of devices, including: (1) World Wide Web access using any standard Web Browser software (2) Personal computers with Personal Financial Manager software (3) Voice Response Units that provide telephone banking services (4) Automated Teller Machines (5) Consumer Wireless devices, such as Personal Digital Assistants or web-enabled mobile telephones."
[March 23, 2000] "IFX Forum's Global Initiative Creates XML Architecture for Online Financial Transactions." - "The Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Forum, established to integrate interoperable and online financial transactions around the world, is accelerating the widespread adoption of Extensible Markup Language (XML) message specifications, ultimately providing the retail consumer with enhanced financial services products and value added applications. Released early this year, the IFX Forum's proposed business message specification, Version 1.0.1, will complete an initial 60-day public review. The IFX Version 1.0.1 specification, with accompanying document type definition (DTD), the XML overview and data dictionary is scheduled for release March 24, 2000, for a final 30-day member and public review with approval expected April 26, 2000. The IFX Forum is developing specifications that facilitate such financial services as global online banking and bill presentment and payment within the financial services market. An active player in the insurance industry, the IFX Forum formed a cooperative relationship with ACORD, the nonprofit insurance standards organization. ACORD sits on the IFX Forum Steering Committee and currently contributes property and casualty business messages based on the IFX XML architecture. In addition to the insurance work group, the IFX Forum is comprised of four additional work groups, including electronic bill presentment and payment, XML implementation, server-to-server, and business banking. Currently under development are the investments and securities and loan applications work groups along with the Open Financial Exchange (OFX)-to-IFX conversion task group, charged with identifying migration issues. The IFX Forum boasts an active Board of Directors, comprised of leading e-commerce representatives from AT&T Corp., Bank of America, BITS, CheckFree Corporation, Citigroup, N.A., EDS, FleetBoston Financial, IBM Corporation, Integrion Financial Network, Intuit Inc., Just in Time Solutions, Microsoft Corporation, PaineWebber Incorporated, S1 Corporation, and Wells Fargo Company, and receives managerial support from the Data Interchange Standards Association. The IFX Forum, open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a variety of benefits for financial services companies and their customers and focuses on promoting the development and adoption of the IFX specification. The IFX Forum members develop open and interoperable specifications that meet the Financial Services Industry business requirements for serving consumer and corporate customers. The mission of the IFX Forum's open membership is to expedite the development and implementation of the IFX specification, which defines the business message format for the electronic exchange of data. Membership in the IFX Forum is open to organizations from around the world, such as financial institutions, banks, brokerages, billers, insurance companies and vendors."
IFX 1.01 Specification. Business Message Specification. January 03, 2000. Public Review Draft. 236 pages. Word (.doc> and PDF formats; [local archive copy]
[January 21, 2000] "Just in Time Delivers Key Contributions to IFX Internet Billing and Payment Standard. Company helps drive XML definition for IFX 1.01 specification." - "Just in Time Solutions, a leading provider of Internet billing and interactive customer care software, today announced that it has delivered the document type definition (DTD) for the eXtensible markup language (XML) representation contained in the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) 1.01 specification. The IFX 1.01 specification, which was recently released by the IFX Forum for public comment, is an open standard that provides a framework for the exchange of financial data between financial institutions, service providers and customers. With input from other members of the IFX Forum's XML Working Group, Just in Time took the lead in creating the DTD for the XML representation contained in the IFX 1.01 specification. The incorporation of a DTD in IFX 1.01 enables financial institutions, service providers and technology vendors to begin developing applications using IFX. In addition, Just in Time helped establish the rules and guidelines for sending and receiving IFX messages in XML. The standard can be found at http://www.ifxforum.org/.
IFX Business Message Specification - Interactive Financial Exchange Message Specification, Information Draft Version 0.7. January 1999.
[October 08, 1999] On XML in financial applications: "You could try looking at http://www.microsoft.com/industry/finserv/initiatives/windowsdnafs/. DNAfs is a initiative driven by the major players in the banking industry to define as standard set of business schemas in XML for messaging between financial applications and components. DNAfs, at a basic level, defines a common business message set plus a standard set of interfaces that consume those messages. This will facilitate 'plug and play' between application components. It is hoped that vendors will adopt DNAfs and 'wrap' existing components with DNAfs interfaces to move this forward. The message set is based on OFX and Gold, it is called IFX, the Interactive Financial Exchange, as is based entirely on XML." [Nic Merriman]
