The Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX) Forum has published version 1.5 of the IFX specification which extends the ATM, POS, business and consumer banking support provided by earlier versions.
The new version of the spec builds on IFX's multi-channel capabilities - such as allowing customers to deposit, withdraw and transfer funds - and enables financial institutions to exchange essential information with customers, service providers and other financial institutions.
Improvements to IFX business message specification for version 1.5 include cheque acceptance messages to support cheque truncation, FX message enhancements to support non-account currencies and improvements in recording contact information.
William Bird, eFunds senior consultant and vice-chair of the IFX architecture committee and ATM/POS workgroup member, says the new version extends IFX to allow the specification to be used by the EFT industry.
"As an open technology, IFX promises to make interoperability between technologies and vendors simpler and cheaper. The involvement of many vendors in the EFT industry promises wide acceptance and product availability," says Bird.
EFT enhancements include read only data and transaction auditability, support for a wider variety of acquiring and generic customer identification devices, support for customers identified by card number only plus support for card verification algorithms and transaction approval tracking.
Patrick Leathrum, MasterCard RPPS technical consultant and chairman of the IFX architecture committee says version 1.5 also contains enhanced functionality designed to improve implementation of IFX.
The public review period for version 1.5 of the IFX specification ends on 19 December 2003.