(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
|
|
| IBM Japan Sets Up Study Group for Banking Service Using GOLD
|
|
October 1, 1998 (TOKYO) -- IBM Japan Ltd. said it established the Regional
Banks Cyber Business Study, a study group for banking services using
information technology, on Sept. 25.
|
A total of 21 regional banks said they will join the group.
Use of GOLD Message Standard (GOLD), a system interface specification
for banking services, is the focus of the study.
GOLD is a specification proposed by Integrion Financial Network, which
is jointly owned by 17 banks in North America, Visa International of
the United States and IBM Corp.
Also, the study group is slated to focus on the collaborative operation
of a payment system utilizing debit cards. It will deal with regional
banks' joint projects in the banking service field after the first quarter
of 1999.
Some other banking service specifications exist, including Open Financial
Exchange (OFX) proposed by Microsoft Corp. as well as Integrion's GOLD,
and a global standard specification has yet to emerge.
The GOLD and OFX camps had an agreement on making their specifications
common and allowing their system to interconnect. However, at the same
time, IBM and Microsoft, spearheading the two camps, are competing for
the de facto standard.
In Japan, IBM Japan started GOLD Direct, the Internet banking solution
using the GOLD specification in August 1998. Sakura Bank Ltd. has already
introduced a GOLD-based system and will start to provide home banking
services in October.
On the other hand, Microsoft released in July a financial management
software product for individual users called Money, which employs a
part of the OFX specification. It allows telecom carriers to provide
communications services using this specification.
(BizTech News Dept.)
|
|
|
