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MFAA supports LIXI

Technical Update

Depending on how you measure, LIXI is now in its seventh or eighth year. During this time many aspects of the organisation have been reviewed with the purpose of ensuring that LIXI services are meeting the needs of the members and represent good value for money. In 2008, the Board has decided to review one of LIXI’s key functions -the Working Group.

Since the birth of LIXI, the changes in IT standards and electronic business architectures have been substantial. Compliance with standards used to be viewed as an expense, whereas now, support for standards is often regarded as a competitive advantage. At the same time, the design and implementation of computer systems is now often focused on fast, incremental improvements (Agile development) and the information publishing cycles are even faster (blogs and wikis).

It is in this new context that the Technical Sub-Committee will be looking for any opportunities to improve the productivity and value that the Working Groups deliver to LIXI members. The review will cover how a standard gets developed from idea through to publishing with a goal of streamlining this process and ensuring transparency while ensuring the standard delivers to members’ expectations. During the course of this review, there will be only be limited resources available for standards development and as a result the Board has directed that resources should be focused on:

• Anti-money Laundering
• NECS
• Valuations

Other work will take place, where it doesn’t require direct LIXI funding or significant LIXI resourcing, such as the NICTA Visible Loans project and the Microsoft sponsored Commissions Reference Implementation.

None of this means other working groups should stop, we encourage group to continue meeting and discussing upgrades. Working groups remain an important mechanism for LIXI to identify opportunities to enhance the standard.

Please contact the Technical Sub-Committee for further direction on advancing any area of particular interest that you may have.

Nick Carr
Allette Systems