New tools of the core processing trade

There’s a whole new set of systems, standards and hardware being used by more CU processors. Here’s a look at some of them. * OFX – A uniform spec for exchanging financial data between financial institutions, consumers and other organizations over the Web. It was first created back in 1997 by CheckFree, Intuit and Microsoft. It plays a role in bill payment, presentment, online brokerage and others. The OFX spec is public knowledge, so vendors can work to make their solutions OFX-compliant. * Relational database management – This is being touted by some CU core processors. It is an approach where data is stored in different dimensions and can be related. So a CU might be able to run two independent data inquiries and construct a new data field based on their relation. CUs can use it for pinpointing ATM volumes throughout the day, branch activity and others. * SQL – Structured query language. It is basically just the query language for querying databases. * ODBC – Open Database Connectivity. This is a standard for applications to communicate with database applications, using SQL queries. Good standard for using Web-based apps to query databases.