Comment by James Roman

July 5, 2006 @ 6:30 am

OFX is not strictly based on XML, but more closely relates to SGML, which would not require the closing tags. Even still, OFX is not as strict a standard as its relationship to SGML would imply. You are allowed to include non-standard tags within an OFX file. In XML, you would just define this in your DTD.

I’ve suffered with a bank that provides OFX files that just barely pass as acceptable by MS Money, and fail to adhere to even the loose standards established by the OFX definition. I imagine this is not a unique situation. My particualr issue with my bank involves not assigning transactions unique transaction IDs (FITID tags). Since my bank uses a third party to present its online account access, my guess is that the underlying mainframe does not maintain transaction IDs that comply with the OFX standard, so the third party provides its own standard for this field.

Given this example, you can see that not all OFX files are the same. I can’t imagine most banks are going to see this issue as important enough to scrap their mainframe systems. Their existing investment in a reliable system is far more important than keeping up with the latest communication standards. While it may hurt you and me, most people just want to best rates/services for the money that they park there.

Comment by chovy

July 6, 2006 @ 9:46 am

Interesting, my understanding was that OFX would be implemented with well-formed XML. If that is not the case, then we’re back to square one.

Do you have a link I can read about this specific issue?