Winner of the Best Business Enabler 2005 Category

MIAA supports LIXI

Welcome

The birthdays keep on coming at an alarming rate! LIXI is 6 years old now and I am sure we are all very proud of this achievement. This issue’s welcome will focus on outlining the other benefits of standards and how these added benefits will help us navigate through the challenges ahead.

We are all convinced by now that the standards in the lending space help our organisations achieve maximum benefits without compromising their ability to excel or differentiate. This is very much analogous to the following example: all VHS VCRs can read and write data on a tape and VCRs from other companies can read the same data without issue. No need for expensive converters or time consuming processes. This standardisation does not impede the creation of the different (brands) of VCRs or the different features or indeed the different price ranges that they sell for. The standardisation is in the way data gets recorded and in the tape mechanism. LIXI works in the same way for the lending industry.

Legislation is part of every industry, with some sectors having greater levels of scrutiny than others. The level of attention in lending, from a legislative perspective, is expected to increase based on expert advice and observations in similar sectors. The said legislation typically means access to methods and data and transparency of process. How does one achieve transparency? You start with the fundamentals such as your data structures, your product definitions, your processing rules, and then you report on them. Strangely enough, that is exactly what we are all working on with LIXI. Then you wrap a process around it to capture compliance, build a report and an authorising structure and your legislation compliance framework is in place. This is a simplistic explanation but very reflective of the needs to be put in place.

So, in 2006 we find another use and benefit that LIXI has to offer and who knows what is in store for 2007? We will never know unless we are active members, contributing to the development and extension of the standard. I would also like to discuss this topic and others like it with you in person and there is no better venue than a LIXI General Meeting which will be held in beautiful Melbourne on the morning of Friday April 7. See the dates for your diary section for location details.

Executive Officer