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Automated clearing house governing body NACHA and the Interactive Financial eXchange Forum Inc. (IFX) this week announced they intend to combine their operations.
Founded in 1997, the Wakefield, Mass.-based IFX Forum is an international non-profit that developed and promotes the IFX business message specification as an open, interoperable for standard for exchanging financial data. Under the consolidation plan, IFX Forum will retain its global and non-profit status and operate as an independent group within Herndon, Va.-based NACHA, with its own governing board. The merger is expected to take effect by March 31.
The organizations said that by combining, they can align their separate priorities for developing application programming interfaces for use in the financial industry. That work currently is overseen by NACHA’s API Standardization Industry Group and the IFX Open Banking APIs Working Group.
“The powerful combination of IFX Forum’s established leadership in financial-industry standards, along with additional technical expertise in the area of API message development, and NACHA’s leadership in payment and adjacent standards will accelerate this innovation,” NACHA president and chief executive Janet O. Estep said in a news release. “The organizations will be able to build relevant standards in existing and new business domains.”
IFX Forum president Richard Urban said in the release that “both organizations share common interests.” In a blog post, he added that “the merger brings IFX Forum into a larger community with greater organizational support.”
