A PROTOCOL FOR THE BANKING PROFESSION

The PeSIT protocol is the result of efforts by the banking profession, in the framework of GSIT, to field a file transfer system. Connecting the data centres of member banks to the network stations required a file transfer protocol able to meet two essential requirements :

• integrate within the ISO/OSI model, potentially on very disparate hardware,


• operate flexibly as regards communication media (specialised links, public networks, local area networks etc.).

The ISO file transfer protocol, FTAM, could have met these requirements had its production process been sufficiently rapid to guarantee that the banking community would have access to FTAM products at a date compatible with the SIT project schedule. Since this was not the case, the banking profession therefore decided in 1985 to define a file transfer protocol for connecting to the SIT network. The result is PeSIT. This protocol is based on the same philosophy as FTAM (integration in the ISO model, virtual file model etc.), and the PeSIT service (interface with the protocol user) is identical to the FTAM service. However, PeSIT offers only a subset of the planned functions of FTAM.