Registry of Unofficial Extensions to the ISO 4217 Alpha Three Currency
Identification Namespace (X-ISO4217-A3)
draft-stanish-x-iso4217-a3-00
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Walter Stanish | ||
| Last updated | 2012-11-14 | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
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draft-stanish-x-iso4217-a3-00
INTERNET-DRAFT Walter Stanish
Intended status: Informational The IFEX Project
Expires: May 13, 2013 ifex-project.org
November 2012
Registry of Unofficial Extensions to the ISO 4217 Alpha Three Currency
Identification Namespace (X-ISO4217-A3)
draft-stanish-x-iso4217-a3-00
Abstract
This document defines a new IANA registry to keep track of
identifiers for currencies or currency-like commodities lying outside
the traditional scope of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) 4217 alpha-3 standard, such as digital
currencies and commodities, currencies issued by countries (nation-
states) with limited international recognition, emerging commodities
such as emissions reduction credits, private or commercial
currencies, and accounting units for local exchange and trading
systems (LETS). Such codes are already in use; the registry simply
codifies their existence.
Status of this Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any
kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This document is an individual submission. Comments are solicited
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and should be addressed to the author(s).
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
This Internet-Draft will expire on May 13, 2013.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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1. Introduction
The vast majority of multicurrency financial systems today use the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 4217 standard
for currency identification, which provides three digit numeric and
three letter ("alpha-3") codepoints for the identification of each
currency. The latter, letter-based codes are in far greater use.
ISO4217 codepoints are registered by the International Organization
for Standardization through the maintenance agency for the registry,
SIX Interbank Clearing [SIX], a Swiss financial body.
The specific terms of SIX or the ISO's mandate within the currency
sphere do not appear to be publicly available. However, given that
geographically defined nation-states with some international
recognition and physically circulating currency (such as Transnistria
[PRB]) have not been issued currency codes, and leaving aside the
relatively large scope for raising conflict of interest questions
with regards to SIX's SWIFT links, it is reasonable to assume that
SIX and the ISO's mandate and/or sphere of interest in the currency
domain is highly unlikely to suddenly extend to emerging currency-
like commodities lacking some or all of the political qualities
exhibited by conventional currencies.
At present, issued codepoints are almost exclusively linked to
national or supra-national entities (eg. 'EUR' for the Euro, the
currency of the European Union) that have achieved political
recognition from the United Nations, with some exceptions for the
more popular traditional commodities, such as gold, and various
regional instruments backed by similar political entities.
This is understandable, given that conventional definitions of the
term 'currency' are often inextricably linked to the notion of
national issue by 'countries' or nation-states:
"a system of money in general use in a particular country"
-- The Oxford Dictionary [OXFORD]
Therefore currencies and currency-like commodities with far smaller
circulation not adopting a traditional national paradigm of issue are
unlikely to be granted a codepoint. Indeed, there is some evidence
that SIX Interbank Clearing has rejected proposals for such
registrations in the recent past, citing lack of a national entity
backing a particular currency. [ISO-REJECTION]
This situation has left both end users and system developers and
integrators in a quandry; in response they have apparently near
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uniformly opted to respond by issuing unofficial ISO4217 alpha-3
codes for private use.
The present problem is that, given the recent growth of such
unofficial codes, and the increasing exchange of such assets across
disparate systems, no registry of unofficial codepoints exists.
Therefore no unambiguous, internet-wide, shared vocabulary can be
adopted by internet systems to identify this emerging class of
assets.
This document proposes the establishment of a registry to be
maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) in order
to resolve this issue by creating an unofficial, parallel namespace
codifying such unofficial extensions to the ISO4217 alpha-3 official
standard, tracking present and future unofficial assignments.
Examples of currencies or currency-like commodities for which systems
may benefit from such registration include decentralized digital
currencies such as Bitcoin [BITCOIN], the upcoming Ripple Credit
[XRP], private currency systems [SLL], and regional currencies of
limited political recognition [PRB] [TEM].
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, RFC 2119
[RFC2119].
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. X-ISO4217-A3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1. Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2. Source Registry Identification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3. Codepoint Identification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Implementation Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Machine Presentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2. End User Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3. Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4. Case Sensitivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.5. Internationalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1. Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1.1. Input Confirmation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1.2. Case Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2. IANA Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. IANA Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Name Space Exhaustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Registration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3. Modification / Cancellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4. Publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.5. ISO Liason. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.6. Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1. Normative References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.2. Informative References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8. Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
9. Appendix A: Initial Registry Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10. Appendix B: Document History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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2. X-ISO4217-A3
The official [ISO4217] codepoints are considered a subset of a larger
namespace providing unambiguous identification of currencies and
currency-like commodities both within conventional ISO4217
assignment, and codepoints external to that registry in popular use,
the registry of which is to be managed by IANA. This goal is
achieved by providing a longer machine format for codepoints, whilst
respecting existing end user expectations regarding format and
presentation.
As a result, systems implementers can provide X-ISO4217-A3 support
and be safe in the knowledge that they will have the capacity to
support all ISO4217 alpha-3 codepoints.
2.1. Examples
The Euro is encoded as '0EUR'.
The digital currency or currency-like commodity known as Bitcoin is
encoded as 'XBTC'.
2.2. Source Registry Identification
In order to issue superset-compatible currency and currency-like
commodity identifiers within the [ISO4217] scheme, a prefix character
is introduced denominating the source registry, being either this
IANA-managed and unofficial registry (denoted with 'X') or the
official ISO-managed registry (denoted with '0').
The 'X' notation is chosen as is the standard semantic for unofficial
extensions within internet drafts. The '0' notation is chosen as
implying an 'initial' or 'original' semantic (with the useful side-
effect of top-sort behaviour thus resulting).
2.3. Codepoint Identification
The X-ISO4217-A3 format may be expressed in ABNF [RFC5234] as
follows:
codepoint = registry a3code ; eg: '0EUR', 'XBTC'
registry = reg-iso / reg-iana ; ie: '0' / capital 'X'
reg-iso = "0" ; ISO4217-A3 (ISO managed)
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reg-iana = %d88 ; X-ISO4217-A3 (IANA managed)
a3code = 3caps-letter ; eg: 'EUR', 'BTC'
caps-letter = %d65 / %d66 / %d67 / %d68 / %d69 / %d70 / %d71 /
%d72 / %d73 / %d74 / %d75 / %d76 / %d77 / %d78 /
%d79 / %d80 / %d81 / %d82 / %d83 / %d84 / %d85 /
%d86 / %d87 / %d88 / %d89 / %d90 ; ie. capital A-Z
An explanation of the major elements follows.
codepoint:
A structurally valid X-ISO4217-A3 codepoint in machine format, ie.
including the registry identifier.
registry:
A character identifying the source registry of the subsequent
'a3code'
being either 'X' (denoting this registry, managed by IANA) or '0'
(denoting the official ISO4217 registry, managed by SIX on behalf
of
the ISO).
a3code:
Alpha-three code. A three letter alphanumeric string identifying a
specific currency or currency-like commodity within the prior
'registry', as presently used within ISO4217 and unofficial
extensions
to the ISO4217 system, for example: 'EUR' (official ISO code
denoting
the Euro) or 'BTC' (widely used code denoting Bitcoin [BITCOIN]).
3. Implementation Considerations
3.1. Machine Presentation
In contrast to the existing practice of utilising ad-hoc vocabularies
for systems integration, X-ISO4217-A3 systems MUST provide the full
X-ISO4217-A3 code including registry identifier to all connecting
systems.
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3.2. End User Presentation
For user presentation purposes, systems MAY wish to present the
'a3code' element to end users rather than the full X-ISO4217-A3
codepoint (eg: 'BTC' instead of 'XBTC'). In such cases, adequate
context SHOULD be given in order to prevent ambiguity. Adeqaute
context MAY include the option to view the full X-ISO4217-A3
codepoint, the human language currency name, and the source registry,
AND/OR the reconfirmation of any initiated operation with such
clarifying contextual information added prior to its actual
execution.
3.3. Input
Implementations SHOULD accept both X-ISO4217-A3 and ISO4217-A3
equally in all cases, such that end users are NOT aware of any
difference between the two standards.
In the event that users provide an 'a3code' as input, multiple
codepointrs The determination of
3.4. Case Sensitivity
Implementations MAY accept (structurally invalid) mixed or lower case
input, but SHOULD normalize this input to (structurally valid) upper
case prior to processing or storage. For relevant security
considerations, see Case Normalization.
Implementations MUST present only upper case normalized (structurally
valid) identifiers to both peer systems and end users.
3.5. Internationalization
The registry MAY include currency and entity names as arbitrary UTF8
strings.
To aid international recognition of individual codepoints,
implementations MUST present only upper case normalized (structurally
valid) identifiers to both peer systems and end users. (See Case
Sensitivity).
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4. Security Considerations
X-ISO4217-A3 only provides a currency or currency-like commodity
identification scheme and DOES NOT approach problems of
communications security, which are purposefully left to other
protocols. Even so, some security considerations are are pertinent.
4.1. Input
4.1.1. Input Confirmation
Because there is always some scope for error in systems requiring end
user input (see Case Normalization), unambiguous confirmation of
input SHOULD be provided. Such confirmation MAY include the full X-
ISO4217-A3 codepoint, the human language currency name, and the
source registry.
4.1.2. Case Normalization
It should be noted with regards to case normalization that some
frequency of manual recognition or transposition errors is likely to
occur whenever input is sought. This frequency increases in
situations where an end user does not have linguistic or other types
of clues regarding a source document's probable vocabulary or
semantics, or is simply unfamiliar with the material. Machine-style
codes, such as X-ISO4217-A3, therefore fall in to a relatively high
risk area, albiet one that conventional ISO4217 systems are also
vulnerable to.
When considering the implementation of X-ISO4217-A3 systems that
accept lower or mixed-case input, implementers SHOULD consider
carefully whether case normalization is an appropriate choice for
their systems, given that the scope for such errors is nominally
(though not hugely) increased. (For example, an input of 'Z' could
come from a user misunderstanding a lowercase 'r', or an input of 'U'
could come from a user misunderstanding a lowercase 'a'.) To some
extent this issue SHOULD be mitigated by the requirement that
implementations MUST present only upper case (structurally valid)
codepoints both to peer systems and end users.
4.2. IANA Processes
IANA MUST provide adequate authentication of registrant institution
communications in order to prevent the subversion of established
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institutions' registration information via IANA's registrar
functions.
5. IANA Considerations
5.1. Name Space Exhaustion
Should the entire IANA-managed portion of the X-ISO4217-A3 namespace
approach registration, IANA MUST immediately select an additional
registry prefix.
5.2. Registration
Codepoints MUST be assigned by IANA on a first come first served
basis [RFC5226]. To support innovation, in contrast to conventional
financial registries, codepoints MUST be issued to ANY registrant
supplying a valid domain name and reasonable information.
Registrants MUST provide the domain name with which their service is
primarily associated AND the name of the registrant (either a person
or an organizational entity), as well as the appropriate contents for
the registry fields.
Registrants MAY request a specific codepoint, or IANA MAY assign them
one.
5.3. Modification / Cancellation
Due to the nature of currency and currency-like commodity
identification between disparate financial systems, codepoint
allocations are permanent and binding. However, modifications to
metadata are possible and SHOULD be effected by IANA within a few
working days. IANA should update the 'modified' field of the
registry entry in question to reflect the fact that modification has
taken place.
5.4. Publication
IANA SHALL publish revisions to the global registry of X-ISO4217-A3
codes as changes are made.
IANA SHALL NOT include ISO4217 official codepoints for legal reasons.
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IANA SHALL provide GPG-compatible cryptographic signatures along with
each version of the registry. IANA MAY provide additional cryptographic
signatures and/or checksums at their sole discretion.
The registry SHALL utilize UTF8 encoding in order to meet
internationalization requirements for institution names.
The format and initial contents of this registry document are specified
in Appendix A.
5.5. ISO Liason
IANA SHOULD formally notify [SIX] (as the maintenance agency of the
ISO4217 registry) of the existence of this registry. IANA SHOULD
make [SIX] feel welcome to forward parties unsuccessful in their
applications for ISO4217 codepoints to IANA, in order to acquire
alternate codepoint registrations within the IANA-managed X-
ISO4217-A3 registry.
5.6. Security
IANA MUST provide adequate authentication of registrant institution
communications in order to prevent the subversion of established
codepoints' metadata via IANA's registrar functions.
As IANA is likely to have superior experience in this domain,
specific procedures are left to IANA's judgement.
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6. References
6.1. Normative References
[ISO4217] ISO. "ISO 4217 - Currency Codes",
http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/
currency_codes.htm
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to
Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
March 1997.
[RFC5226] Narten, T., and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs",
BCP 26, RFC 5226, May 2008.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
January 2008.
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6.2. Informative References
[BITCOIN] Nakamoto, S., "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic
Cash System", 2009-05-24.
http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
[ISO-REJECTION] grossdigitalproduct, "getting BTC into ISO 4217
currency list", 10 November 2012.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123600
Relevant excerpt:
"I also understand you have previously denied
such requests with the following statements:
1. The currency code is not linked to any
country code.
2. The currency code is considered a
'private currency' and not used for
tender in any country.
3. There will be no international payments
denominated in Bitcoin therefore an ISO
currency code for the Bitcoin is not
applicable.
4. The Institution responsible for the
Bitcoin does not appear to be recognized
internationally or have any official
status. Neither Reuters or Bloomberg
provides market data related to its use."
[OXFORD] Oxford University Press, "Definition of currency"
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/
currency
[PRB] Trans-Dniester Republican Bank, "History of coins
and banknotes". Retrieved November, 2012.
http://www.cbpmr.net/?id=33&lang=en
[SIX] SIX Interbank Clearing
http://www.six-interbank-clearing.com/
[SLL] "Economy of Second Life"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Second_Life
[TEM] Exchange and Solidarity Network of Magnesia,
"Alternate Monetary Unit"
http://www.tem-magnisia.gr/
[XRP] OpenCoin, Inc. "Ripple open source payment system"
http://ripple.com/
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7. Acknowledgments
* Payward, Inc. funded the research and development of this
document.
* OpenCoin, Inc. provided valuable feedback.
* The (completely OMC unaffiliated) OpenSimulator project staff were
helpful in clarifiying the origin and status of OMC.
8. Authors' Addresses
Prepared by Walter Stanish <walter@stani.sh> of Payward, Inc. on
behalf of The Internet Financial EXchange (IFEX) Project:
http://www.ifex-project.org/
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9. Appendix A: Initial Registry Contents
Prior to IANA handover, parties wishing to acquire an identifier may do
so by contacting the IFEX Project via ifex-project.org
# X-ISO4217-A3: Unofficial ISO4217 Alpha-3 Extensions Registry.
#
# Version: 20121113-0
# (Format is <yyyy><mm><dd>-<x>, where x is a digit from 0-9)
#
# To be cryptographically signed by IANA and replicated freely.
#
# Format:
# - Lines beginning with '#' are comments.
# - Whitespace should be ignored.
# - Fields at the end of a record may be absent.
# - Records are comprised of the following fields (ABNF):
# country-code institution-code "|" created "|" modififed \
# "|" domain "|" registrant "|" fingerprint
#
# Fields:
# registry Registry of origin. 'X' denotes IANA X-ISO4217-A3.
# a3code Three character code identifying the currency or
# currency-like commodity within a registry.
# name-singular Singular form name of the currency (or primary unit)
# e Number of post-decimal digits in normal use.
# created Date of registration (YYYY-MM-DD).
# modified Date last modified (YYYY-MM-DD), or blank.
# domain Primary domain name associated with the record.
# registrant Native language name of the registrant (UTF8).
X|ACD|Avination Care Dollar|2|2012-11-13||avination.com|Avination
Virtual Limited
X|BTC|Bitcoin|8|2012-11-13||bitcoin.org|Bitcoin Community
X|CER|Kyoto Protocol Certified Emissions Reduction CO2
Tonne|4|2012-11-13|||United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change
X|OMC|Open Metaverse Currency|2|2012-11-13||Open Metaverse Currency
Community
X|PRB|Transistrian Ruble|0|2012-11-13||cbpmr.net|Trans-Dniester
Republican Bank
X|SLL|Second Life Linden Dollar|0|2012-11-13||secondlife.com|Linden
Research, Inc.
X|TEM|Volos Alternative Monetary Unit|0|2012-11-13||tem-
magnesia.gr|Volos Alternative Monetary Unit Community
X|VER|Non Kyoto Protocol Verified Emissions Reduction CO2
Tonne|4|2012-11-13|||Non Kyoto Protocol Verified Emissions Reduction
Community
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X|XRP|Ripple Credit|6|2012-11-13||ripple.com|OpenCoin Inc.
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10. Appendix B: Document History
draft-stanish-x-iso4217-a3-00 (2012-11-13)
Initial release.
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