JEPI addresses how shoppers will select their payment method. Many of these groups have said they want to hand over the efforts to an appropriate standards body, but nobody has really figured out who that would be. But not all these efforts need to fall under a single umbrella body for Internet commerce. Integrion Financial Network, a consortium of big banks plus IBM, will merge, albeit reluctantly, its Gold Standard specification with OFX next year. In the meantime, the two will interoperate.
Standards are boring but vital.
Because for the Net to become a true medium for transactions, many things we take for granted in the physical world must be recreated. Technology standards are set in arcane ways in obscure bodies. Vendors try to bend the process to their own advantage. 1995-99 CNET Inc. All rights reserved.