The Interactive Financial eXchange Forum was formed in 1997 to create a messaging standard for financial services that would address the challenges faced with the advent of network-based computing models. The standard is extensible to cover many types of financial transactions and global in scope in order to address the need to communicate around the world. The IFX Forum membership is made up of industry leading financial institutions, service providers and independent software vendors, who all believe in the process of open, industry driven standards creation. Membership is open to anyone interested in contributing to the development of open financial standards.