LIXItech

CAL 1.4a (finally!)

Well, like all things LIXI, this has taken longer than we'd hoped but a draft release of LIXI CAL updated to support Anti-Money Laundering requirements has finally been published. This is a draft release and member comments are urgently sought to determine if the draft meets member needs. I cannot overstate this - if you are a CAL user you need to review this draft to determine if it is sufficient to enable you to comply with your interpretation of the AML requirements. If we have missed something important the only way we'll know is if you tell us.

LIXI members can view the draft schema here.

This draft is a modification of the CAL 1.4 standard and has been labeled CAL 1.4a. As I've mentioned previously our intention is to publish similar releases to modify CAL 1.2 and CAL 1.3 (CAL 1.2a and CAL 1.3a respectively). This will mean that all CAL users, regardless of the CAL release they are currently using, will only have to make the bare minimum of change to existing systems to be able to comply with AML requirements (e.g. if you are currently using CAL 1.2 you only need to adopt CAL 1.2a - you won't need to upgrade all the way to CAL 1.4a unless you want to). The changes needed to create CAL 1.2a and CAL 1.3a are very similar to those made to CAL 1.4 so these releases will be available very soon after we have confirmed that this draft release is acceptable.

This document describes the changes made to create CAL 1.4a.

This may have slipped under your radar

LIXI Products 1.3* has finally been released. After close to three years work, re-work, and re-work of the re-work followed by starting over and doing it all again. Sigh. But that's all in the past now! The main thing is that it's done and ready for use. If you can't think how to deploy it I suggest you take a close look at the Visible Loans project for inspiration.

The new schema is available for download by LIXI members here, and a User Guide can be found here.

* Observant LIXIphiles may be wondering why a new standard has the designation "1.3". This is because LIXI CAL up to CAL 1.2 included a DTD specifically for product information. It was an odd place to put it, and to the best of my knowledge no-one actually used it, but it was there.

Great minds think alike

This news update was just emailed to NECS stakeholders:

"Industry and jurisdiction stakeholders alike will be interested in a recent development in the UK.

The UK Land Registry, custodian of the world’s largest land register with almost 18 million titles registered, has announced that it has signed up as a member of the e-business standards body PISCES (Property Information Systems Common Exchange Standard) as part of its commitment to electronic conveyancing  PISCES Ltd is a not-for-profit body similar to LIXI Ltd and has been involved in developing and publishing a wide range of electronic data transfer standards for the property industry in the UK and Europe over the past ten years.

The UK Land Registry has been working towards an electronic conveyancing solution since 2002 and its Director of Information Systems, John Wright, noted in the announcement that “PISCES is one of the key drivers behind the adoption of open e-business standards for the property industry, enabling it (ie the industry) to function more effectively and efficiently.”

Like the partnership between LIXI and NECS, the UK Land Registry sees its involvement with PISCES, of which many of its customers are members, as benefiting the development of electronic conveyancing and in particular integration of its systems with industry systems to achieve straight-through processing of conveyancing transactions.

The announcement can be viewed at http://www.landreg.gov.uk/about_us/pressoffice/notices/default.asp?article_id=17192 and details of PISCES are available at http://web.pisces.co.uk/public/about.aspx?ID=1."

If you'd like to know more about Australia's electronic conveyancing initiative you can check out the NECS website. LIXI members who'd like to know more about how the LIXI/NECS collaboration is going can take a look here.

New Year's Resolution: Do Something About CAL 2.0

LIXI aficionados will know that "CAL 2.0" has been mentioned for years as the point at which we break with the past and correct all the mistakes we've accumulated through successive versions of CAL 1.x. While those of us closely involved with CAL at a technical level would dearly love to do a major clean-up the problem has always been the investment many LIXI members have already made in CAL 1.x. There is a substantial constituency for the idea that, "it's not really broke, so why fix it?"

Nevertheless the shear weight of the accumulating hacks and compromises in CAL 1.x will eventually force us to take the leap, and in my opinion 2008 is the year it will have to happen. If you'd like to know more please have a read of this document. It's intended as a straw man so feel free to comment and/or criticise to your heart's content. You can post comments here, in the Loan Application Working Group on the LIXI site or directly to me via email. Note that the document is officially a "Draft" with a version number of 0.1 - it really is intended as a starter document that will only be complete once we have substantial member feedback to include.

Update: The content of the document has been added to the online requirements discussion for CAL 2, so you can embed comments there if you like.