This document describes advantages - high level managerial and executive reasons - for using XML-X instead of alternates.
For all other information, see the XML-X site.
The Primary Authors of XML-X are Erwin van der Koogh and Ian Grigg. The Author of this document is Ian Grigg. See the site for more details.
We assume a three-party Payment model. This means that there is a server that settles payments, and there are users. The first user pays the second user by transfering value from her account at the server to the second's users account at the server.
Generally, the server is separated into a frontend presentation layer, and a backend accounting engine.
The frontend is typically a website, but may also be a FLASH plugin into the user's browser, or an applet running on a phone.
The backend is typically a database, but may also be a proxy that converts XML-X into a different language such as SOX or SWIFT or FIX.
Some of the key advantages to using XML-X are listed below.
Every access to the accounts backend is forced through the constrained channel of XML-X.
As XML-X was designed for payments from scratch, it closely matches the security and semantics of payments. This close alignment means that there are less likely to be security breaches due to cultural issues.
Different administrative departments or even outsourced companies could be responsible for each of the frontend and backend servers. This separation of roles concept is a critical governance technique to protect large sums of money.
Yet, separating out the operations into two distinct department often involves large costs in loss of communications and closeness. As systems grow up and become critical to large numbers of users, the pressure on costs means that many money providers do not properly govern their backends.
With a clear, open and readable interface such as XML-X, it suffices to teach each team the XML-X language, and each department now has an easy way to communicate with the other.
XML itself is easy to recognise with minimal training for even the most technically limited. XML-X takes special care to keep the interface clearly aligned to the payments and accounts concepts.
In principle, it is possible with XML-X to swap in different backends, or to mount different front ends for different presentation purposes.
This might be important when, for example, selecting an open source, free backend that does the basics, but lacks advanced governance and performance features. Later on, a money can seamlessly replace that backend with an expensive system that meets bigger needs.
As they can both "talk" XML-X, the replacement can happen without dramatic adjustments to the code base of the frontend. The two backends could even be run in parallel.
Likewise, one backend can service two frontends. No longer is it a technically challenging task to add access from the latest hype cycle. Simply build the frontend in the flavour of the month, and talk XML-X to the backend.
Disputes are the black sheep of the payment systems family. Nobody wants to talk about them, and nobody wants to pay for their mistakes.
When one user says one thing, and another user does or says another, a dispute arises. Often, the payment system provider is encouraged to try and suppress these disputes, or ignore them, simply because of the costs involved in supporting disputes. Likewise, a user that claims one thing about a transaction, and a system that interprets another thing about a transaction, can result in a very expensive dispute.
XML-X is designed to reduce and eliminate disputes by creating clear evidence that is one and the same as the instruction, and to confirm key payment instructions with clear and solid receipts.
With XML-X, disputes are much simpler to deal with. The XML-X record of the request for a payment provides a solid piece of evidence. With XML-X, the request is fully defined because the backend does not receive the information any other way!
When a dispute arises, it is simply a matter of providing the XML-X requests that were enacted. This means even trivial support operations can be addressed and reduced quickly.
By providing such a solid piece of evidence in a dispute, arguments, difficulties and confusions are immediately firewalled. It becomes immediately clear what happened and it also slices off large areas of the system from the dispute.
XML-X acts to eliminate the he said, she said argument. This reduces disputes dramatically, by either moving them into conventional support domain, or by giving the facts needed to address closely what happened, and who is responsible.
Debugging is much easier when the core interface is brought up into a readable, standardised and solid form. A programmer can read an XML-X request, and immediately realise the intentions. This assists in deciding whether the bugs are in the front end or in the backend.
There is a simple HTML-based slide show located at www.xml-x.org/show_time/.
Much of the development of XML-X was described in a journalistic series of rants located www.xml-x.org/rant/.