Intelidata Technologies Launches OFX-Based Home Banking System

Intelidata Technologies Corp. has introduced Interpose OFX, a home banking system based on the Open Financial Exchange standard.

The program is certified for the Microsoft Money personal finance software and Home Financial Network Inc.'s Home ATM banking package.

Interpose OFX can handle a full set of on-line transactions, including balance inquiries, bill payments, statement downloads, and electronic mail.

"The product supports popular consumer software, is written on the Microsoft Internet Finance Server Tool Kit, and breaks the $100,000 price mark," said Intelidata president and chief executive officer John Backus.

The company said a bank can go live with an in-house OFX operation in less than 100 days. The banking service comes in under $100,000; with bill payment added, the price is under $200,000.

Mr. Backus said he expects to announce an agreement with a "top-five" bank to install Interpose OFX before the summer. "We expect several more (contracts) to drop now that it is live and certified," he added.

"This puts Intelidata in a unique strategic position to serve the interests of the leading banks with a relatively inexpensive platform for home banking," said Dan Schley, chairman and CEO of Home Financial Network, Westport, Conn.

"It is a powerful announcement and a great benefit, in our view, for banks to do on-us processing of transactions," said Mr. Schley. "Banks can install Interpose, distribute our software, and boom-they are in the home banking business."

The announcement by Herndon, Va.-based Intelidata was predictable, said Bill Burnham, senior research analyst with Piper Jaffray, Minneapolis. "But it is significant in that it represents OFX coming of age. It also represents that the battle between OFX and Gold at the front end is essentially over," now that OFX is moving into the type of "middleware" that Intelidata provides, he said.

OFX was the result of an agreement last year among Checkfree Corp., Intuit Inc., and Microsoft Corp. for standardizing data flows. The rival, Gold, is supported by International Business Machines Corp. and the Integrion consortium to which it belongs.

Interpose is expected to be interoperable with Microsoft and First Data Corp.'s MSFDC bill presentment program later this year.

Intelidata's OFX system competes with one from Corillian Corp. of Beaverton, Ore., which has signed six bank clients to what it claims was the first end-to-end system of this type.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER