The IFX Forum has released version 1.4.0 of the Interactive Financial Exchange Business Message Specification, incorporating new features to support ATM, POS and other financial channels. The Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) is a mature, well-designed XML-based, financial messaging protocol, built by financial industry and technology leaders incorporating decades of combined experience and best of breed design principles. IFX contains many messages that are required today and in the future for use at ATMs (e.g., deposit, withdrawal, balance inquiry, transfer, bill presentment, bill payment, valuable media service, terminal management and monitoring. The updated 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. The 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. IFX v1.5 is slated to include such functions as pre-paid phone recharge capabilities, person-to-person payments, POS transactions, and several check-related and money order purchase features."

Bibliographic data: Interactive Financial Exchange Business Message Specification. Version 1.4.0. Status: Public Review. Date: 18-February-2003. IFX Forum, Inc. 749 pages. Published format: MS Word (.DOC).

IFX Features for the ATM/POS Industry

• Financial Transactions: Withdrawal, Transfer, Balance/Account Inquiries, Envelope Deposit, Cash Deposit, Cash Recycling, Check Deposit, PIN Change, Statement Print, Card Verification, Customer Verification, Payment Enclosed, Payment, Bill Payment, Credit Card Cash Advance, and Non-Currency Dispense.
• Security Functionality: DES, Triple-DES, Remote Key Downloading, Message Authentication (MACing), and EMV.
• ATM Device Management (State-of-health): Alert Messages.
• ATM Terminal Management: Open/Close Messages, Local (Reg E) Configuration.
• ATM Inventory Management: Terminal Balancing, Terminal Subtotaling, and Mid-point Inventory Adjustments.

Specification Version 1.4.0 Overview:

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.

This document provides the financial services industry with a common set of Business Messages that may be used to provide message-processing services across multiple organizations and networks. This document defines the information that must be sent in a message request and in a message response from a business perspective and provides message semantics for each request and response pair. This document provides the basis for business-level information flow between Financial Institutions, their customers, and third-party Service Providers.

For example, an individual account holder may bank from home using a secure connection over the public Internet to connect to their Financial Institution. The same request message sent from the personal computer in the home may enter the Financial Institution's private data network for processing or be routed to a third-party Service Provider that processes that message on behalf of the Financial Institution. Regardless of the organization that actually processes the message or what computing and network architecture that organization has installed, the customer receives a response message with standard semantics.

Complementary documents called Interactive Financial Exchange Implementation Specifications are expected to provide additional detail on how the business messages defined in this document may be physically represented. Each IFX Implementation Specification is an agreement between vendors and the financial services industry on how to implement the business messages defined in this document. IFX Implementation Specifications also provide the basis for interworking among products and services from various vendors and custom software developed by Financial Institutions and Service Providers.

About The IFX Forum: "The IFX Forum is made up of leading financial institutions, service providers and software vendors. Membership to the IFX Forum is open to anyone interested in contributing to the development of open financial standards that harness the power of XML. The IFX Forum is currently organized into the following working groups: ATM/POS; Business Banking; and Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment. IFX Forum working groups, in concert with an Architecture Committee to coordinate their efforts, develop open Internet-compatible messages for all sectors of the financial services industry."