Re: Organize a chat on account/ledger capabilities?

Hi Evert,

Good points but I think fundamentally the W3C has evolved in a world where
developer-centric processes are favoured and ISO favours large
organisations and governments.


On 3 September 2015 at 08:49, <E.R.Fekkes@rn.rabobank.nl> wrote:

> Hello Adrian,
>
>
>
> Well worded response, of which I recognize quite a lot.
>
> Some comments, though:
>
>
>
> ·         ISO standards must be paid for, but do you think the cost is
> prohibitive?
> I think ISO has a different business model as W3C, but for ISO my
> organization does not have to pay a (substantial) membership fee.
>
I do. The majority of W3C standards I look at I do so as part of my
research. Only quite far into the process would I need them as a definitive
reference and be prepared to pay for them.

For a small dev shop paying for every spec is a non-starter. Access to the
specs is also not reserved for members. Organisations become members of W3C
to support the consortium's work and to have input into the development of
standards not for any privileged access to the specs.

>
> ·         In my opinion, we should make use of ISO and other work as
> components. ISO 20022 is surely a given and could be extended with JSON
> formats next to XML and ASN.1.
>
Absolutely. My one concern about ISO20022 is that the messaging seems to be
very use case specific. i.e. There is a message definition for each use
case and these definitions are extensive.

I suspect we will be looking to define our standards at a higher level of
abstraction with a minimal set of required fields and an extensible format
since that's how the Web works and most successful Web standards have
evolved.

There was some effort from Erik and others to get a comprehensive
dictionary from ISO20022 as a basis for our vocabulary but I think the
result was that this simply doesn't exist.

> ISO 8583 is gradually on it’s way out, but we have to keep in mind that
> many processing systems are firmly based on this standard and migration
> will take 5-10 years. Other standards such as security, connectivity (NFC)
> are necessary elements as well.
>
ISO8383 is dead. Long live ISO8583 :)

The rate of innovation on the Web is certainly unmatched in most other
ecosystems. That's probabaly why the "FinTech revoluton" is taking place as
technology spills into industries that have not evolved as fast as they
could have.

I like our approach of dealing with friction points and interoperability
and letting the existing schemes (like card and others based on dinosaur
technology) operate within those new paradigms but at the same time
allowing new schemes to evolve that are more suited to the Web architecture.


> ·         The W3C WPAY must define the gaps and fill these with open
> standards, building on the fundaments of ISO and others. In the cards
> world, you could say that EMV dit that as well, athough still not as open
> as is the case with W3C...
>
+1 - although we shouldn't expect the world to simply patch the holes and
ignore the opportunities to embrace the Web as a replacement for these
legacy networks that run on ISO-developed protocols.

At the end of the day the ISO protocols can easily be adapted to run on the
Internet as opposed to private networks and I expect that this will
ultimately be the way things move (unless the ISO protocols prove to be a
hindrance to this or some other factor impacts this).

I see our role within the IG as being the facilitators of a process where
everybody wins. Ideally the traditional institutions like FIs, SWIFT, ISO
embrace the Internet as the infrastructure upon which they will build their
next iteration of payments services and will use mature and trusted Web
technologies to do it. In that way the innovation on that system is not
limited to large organisations with specialized knowledge of the domain.

The incumbents benefit from an ecosystem that is able to innovate and
evolve much faster than before and developers are empowered to participate
in this process (even if it's just a guy with his laptop and an internet
connection).


>
>
> Comments welcome!
>
>
>
> Evert Fekkes
>
> Rabobank
>
>
>
> *Van:* Adrian Hope-Bailie [mailto:adrian@ripple.com]
> *Verzonden:* woensdag 2 september 2015 15:32
> *Aan:* KETELS Kris
> *CC:* Adrian Hope-Bailie; Kepeng Li; Adler, Patrick; Fekkes, ER (Evert);
> VIGNET cyril; j.j.spaanderman@dnb.nl; Web Payments IG; Ian Jacobs
> *Onderwerp:* Re: Organize a chat on account/ledger capabilities?
>
>
>
> Hi Kris,
>
>
>
> I'd classify ISO 20022 as an exception. The development of the standard
> was done in the traditional ISO manner but the standard is just a
> methodology that laid a foundation for open development of the messaging
> standards.
>
>
>
> Traditionally ISO standards are developed quite differently to Web
> standards. They are developed in closed groups under strict confidentiality
> and the standards themselves are not free and open for anyone to download
> and implement royalty-free.
>
>
>
> The W3C (like the IEEE, ETT Internet Society etc ) are advocates of open
> standards principals: https://open-stand.org/ which are quite different
> to the principals of ISO.
>
>
>
> That is not to say there are not reasons for there to be different
> approaches to standardisation for different circumstances but from the
> perspective of Web technology development I would strongly favour open
> standards.
>
>
>
> Some illustrative anecdotes:
>
>
>
> I worked for a long time at for a very large payments software vendor
> where we spent a lot of our time ensuring our software was compliant with
> the latest specifications. These were usually variations of ISO8583 from
> different networks. All of these specs were closely guarded confidential
> documents that required careful management of their distribution. To this
> day I have not seen a copy of the original ISO8583 spec from ISO because my
> company would have had to pay a lot of money for it just for me to have
> that privilege.
>
>
>
> I am part of the W3C liaison with ISO for ISO12812 and have had to install
> a whole load of document lifecycle management software on my laptop just to
> be able to receive documents to do my work.
>
>
>
> The reality is that the ISO model may work in manufacturing or similar
> industries where there are layers of abstraction from the specification to
> the implementation and the cost of getting your hands on the spec is
> minimal in comparison to all of the other input costs.
>
>
>
> On the Web, where some products are developed with almost zero overheads
> on tiny budgets as they attempt to get traction this model simply doesn't
> work. The only people that can afford to be bothered with ISO specs are
> already large companies the majority of whom are struggling to innovate
> fast enough to defend themselves against the threat of the small start-ups
> (especially so in the financial technology sector).
>
>
>
> So, I can imagine these incumbents being very supportive of ISO
> specifications, especially in jurisdictions where they have implicit
> regulatory backing, but that would simply be because it helps them maintain
> their defense against disruptive innovators that see proprietary and closed
> specifications as barriers to entry.
>
>
>
> On ISO20022 specifically:
>
>
>
> I think the approach taken with ISO20022 is excellent. I am certain it
> will become the language of payments globally and that is attributable in
> large parts to the availability of information on it's use. It's the only
> developer friendly ISO specification initiative I am aware of.
>
>
>
> I would like it if JSON encoding was supported as a first-class citizen
> since that is the the most common data encoding format on the Web (I know
> it's possible just not easy).
>
>
>
> I would also be interested to know if ISO20022 had picked a linked-data
> format (like JSON-LD) for encoding if the current plethora of message types
> and fields and complexity could have been avoided but who can say.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 1:40 PM, KETELS Kris <Kris.KETELS@swift.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Adrian,
>
>
>
> Can you explain why you qualify ISO standards as being the opposite of
> open W3C standards?
>
> I myself haven’t encountered a more open (financial) standard as ISO 20022.
>
>
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
> Kris
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Adrian Hope-Bailie [mailto:adrian@hopebailie.com]
> *Sent:* 19 August 2015 18:58
> *To:* Ian Jacobs
> *Cc:* Kepeng Li; Adler, Patrick; Adrian Hope-Bailie; Evert Fekkes; VIGNET
> cyril; j.j.spaanderman@dnb.nl; Web Payments IG
> *Subject:* Re: Organize a chat on account/ledger capabilities?
>
>
>
> Hi Ian,
>
> Definitely interested. It would be great if the standards that were used
> for XS2A came out of this group and followed all of the open standards
> principles of the W3C and used Web technology as opposed to some ISO
> standard.
>
> We need to get some direct participation from the EPC, EBA etc
>
> Adrian
>
>
>
> On 19 August 2015 at 18:45, Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Kepeng, Pat, Adrian, Evert, Cyril, Jurgen, (and others who may be
> interested),
>
> I was chatting with Kepeng yesterday about capabilities related to
> account/ledger access. We were discussing
> the sorts of useful things one could do if there were standard APIs for
> account/ledger access, including building
> risk monitoring systems that would have an easier time working with
> diverse types of accounts. Also, I wondered
> whether PSD2 regulation in Europe might be leading to a need for open
> standards to provide access to
> accounts from Web applications.
>
> Maybe we can organize a Thursday call around this topic so that we can
> determine who is interested, and
> whether, for example, there is even enough interest to start a task force.
>
> Please let me know if this discussion would interest you. Thanks!
>
> Ian
>
> --
> Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>      http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
> Tel:                       +1 718 260 9447
>
>
>
>
>
> ======================================================
> Rabobank disclaimer: http://www.rabobank.nl/disclaimer
>