[LINK] OzIT: 'ASIC in call for extended EFT code'

[Stilgherrian]

On 07/10/2008, at 10:21 AM, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> I confess to catching something that seems related to this story on  
> one of the
> "6.30 reports".
>
> The story claimed that the bank, in question, didn't validate the  
> destination
> account name against the account number, for a  netbanking  
> payments....Sounds a
> bit like offering the option to cancel, but ignoring the selection.

My understanding (i.e. "something I heard somewhere once") is that ALL  
inter-bank transfers only use the BSB and account number to decide  
where the money goes, and the "account name" text field is only  
referred to by humans later if something goes wrong.

I'm guessing the cost of rebuilding the global banking system so that  
it implements appropriate fuzzy matching on account names (e.g. "Dr  
Susan Smith" matches "Dr. Susan Smith" and "Dr S Smith" and "Dr. S.  
Smith" and "Susan Smith", and following up problems with mis-typed  
account names beyond what the matching can cope with) would be much  
higher than just following up problems arising from the current system.

As an aside, Mastercard can't put a full stop in the business name on  
a business debit card. So, while one business name I use is  
"Prussia.Net", the appropriate card has "PRUSSIA NET" on it simply  
because the allowed character sets don't match. When I complained that  
they weren't putting the actual name of the business on the card, they  
didn't seem to care. Indeed, they didn't even understand why someone  
*would* care about an error like this. This does not inspire confidence.
?
Stil


-- 
Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/
Internet, IT and Media Consulting, Sydney, Australia
mobile +61 407 623 600
fax +61 2 9516 5630
Twitter: stilgherrian
Skype: stilgherrian
ABN 25 231 641 421