Let's look at this inflammatory headline:

Woman’s 'spree' after $158k banking error, refuses to return pensioner’s life savings

An Auckland beneficiary is under investigation for an alleged “spending spree” after $158,000 was mistakenly transferred to her account.

[…] pensioner lost his life savings due to an account number error.

The account number provided to Westpac had only 15 digits, not the intended 16, so Westpac added a zero to the suffice [sic] as per its usual protocols.

Newstalk ZB

Wow! That seems pretty bad. Obviously the woman who allegedly received the money and then spent it shouldn't have done that. Spending money that doesn't belong to you is a crime in most parts of the world. But let's focus on the real villain here - the evil bank!!

Why did the bank make the decision to add an extra digit to the recipient's account number?

An NZ bank account number looks like BB-bbbb-AAAAAAA-SSS.

The first two digits are the banking institution and the next four are the specific branch. The seven digit account number relates to the specific account. The three digit suffix is for the type of account. For example, your spending account might have suffix 001 and your savings account might have suffix 099.

However, because all suffices have a leading zero, it is often only displayed as two.

So, adding an extra zero to the suffix itself shouldn't have caused a problem. It would have gone to the correct recipient although it might have either gone to the wrong sub-account. Indeed, WestPac's help page on international transfers says "if your account suffix is 12, enter 012". It sounds like the journalist hasn't quite understood where the insertion happened.

It seems likely to me that the victim meant to type 1234567-001 but missed a digit, causing WestPac to shift things to 1235670-01. That's poorly formatted but technically valid.

But, wait! Don't bank account numbers have checksums? Yes! According to NZ's internal revenue, all bank account numbers have a check-digit. However, when checking an account number's validity:

If less than the maximum number of digits is supplied, then values are right justified and the fields padded with zeroes

Bank account number validation

Having played around with the algorithm, the first few digits of the account number aren't included in the checksum validation. For example, the account number 1234567 and 0234567 both pass checksumming. So it is possible that padding the start of the string wouldn't have been picked up.

Whatever the underlying issue, it is distressing to hear of someone losing a significant amount of money.

What could have stopped this?

Humans make mistakes. As an industry, we know this. It's our job to prevent, rectify, and neutralise those mistake. We need systems in place which reduce the likelihood of errors causing catastrophic failures.

Here are some systemic changes which could have prevented this:

1. New Zealand could adopt the IBAN standard for international transfers.
   • They don't seem keen on doing this.
   • It wouldn't prevent mistyping, but a standardised length makes transferring to the wrong account less likely.
2. Confirmation of Payee asks the user to type in the name of the intended recipient. If it doesn't match the bank account, the payment is rejected or cautioned against.
   • NZ is rolling out CoP but it doesn't yet apply to international transfers.
   • Multi-lingual CoP is complex. I don't know if any cross-border payments do this yet.
3. WestPac should have noticed the name discrepancy.
   • This is the argument I have the most sympathy with.
   • Of course, returning the money (especially to a closed account) may be difficult.

Large systems changes are expensive and time consuming.

What else could have been done? Let's go to the final few sentences of the story:

Unfortunately, the incorrect bank account number provided by Che was a valid account number for another customer, Westpac said.

“As soon as Mr Che alerted us to the issue, we traced the payment and froze the remaining funds.”

But Westpac was unable to recover the rest of Che’s money due to the seven-week delay in reporting his error to the banks.

Emphasis added

I'm not trying to victim blame here, but WestPac seem to have done what was asked for them. The sender provided an ambiguous bank account number which was, nevertheless, valid.

The sender didn't raise an issue for seven weeks. Once notified, the bank froze the recipient account and notified the police.

Yes, big evil banks should be less evil. But they're in a tough spot. People want protection, but they resent banks telling them what they can and can't do with their own money. Big systemic change is difficult but it seems crushingly unfair when an innocent party is caught in the middle.

I don't think anyone comes out of this covered in glory. Banks need to invest in technology which keeps their customers safe. Customers need to take some responsibility for checking whether a bank has done the right thing.

The only tips I can give is that you must always copy & paste financial details from a trusted source, rather than manually type them in. Always send a small amount first to check it is received. If you suspect a mistake, contact your bank immediately.

Stay safe out there.

There is a fair bit of Te reo Māori (Māori language) in the book. It's great that the language is enjoying a resurgence. Most concepts are explained in context - although you may need to rely on your eReader's dictionary function a few times.

Ideas like ‘social licence’ for me is hōhā, terrible, because it’s based on the fact that the government has trust. I think that’s a fundamental assumption that the government doesn’t have the right to assume, especially after 180-plus years of colonisation.

Some of the lessons it teaches are specifically relevant in a Māori context - for example whether the local iwi may only have signed and acknowledge He Whakaputanga and not Te Tiriti. But the lessons are broadly applicable to to every community.

It really focuses on the systemic issues which can lead to people being (self) excluded from fully participating in digital life:

As well as general mistrust of government, there is a lot of intergenerational ill-feeling in Māori communities and organisations about over-consultation by researchers and government staff.

It doesn't just focus on Māori issues - there are lots of stories about how participatory design should be used to ensure services are move inclusive and equitable.

When the NZ COVID Tracer app was first launched in 2020, the mandatory and seemingly simple act of placing QR code posters in shops and cafés excluded certain sectors of the community. Many businesses displayed the posters in places inaccessible to wheelchair users, which made them unable to comply with the directive to scan in.

It's a great book for the modern digital practitioner with a social conscience.

Whina tells the true story of Josephina Cooper, a Maori woman fighting for her rights, and the rights of her people.

The film doesn't sugar-coat the story. Whina was headstrong and, it would appear, sometimes a bit difficult to get along with. I've no idea how true to life it is, but the story is compelling and powerful. It (rightly) raises uncomfortable questions about colonialism and its long-lasting effects.

Nat Spiller, an admired climate change activist, has accidentally drowned. That’s the police verdict. But was it an accident? His partner Ellie thinks otherwise. Pam, Ellie’s aunt, draws a reluctant Lauren Fraser into the mystery.

It's a bit weird to describe a murder mystery as "cosy" - but that's the vibe of this book. It's a sequel to The One That Got Away and follows a similar template. The eponymous Lauren Fraser isn't exactly the town snoop - but she has a knack for sticking her nose into a mystery and wheedling out information from the most truculent suspect.

Part New Zealand travelogue and part eco-justice manifesto. It is a relaxed trip through the scenery of Wellington and the Antarctic, tackling politics and murder with equal aplomb.

The book is written by my wife's mother's cousin and her wife - which may colour my review.

In 1961, a boy from Somerset embarked with his family on a six-week voyage to New Zealand. He left behind an English village where generations of his family had lived, to make a new home in a remote country that was still closely tied to the one he'd left.

Despite challenges adapting as new immigrants, these were good times to be growing up in rural New Zealand. But the country was about to embark on its own change as ties with Britain were loosening and a more outward-looking, confident and diverse nation was emerging. Peter Hamilton joined the diplomatic service as this change was getting underway and his four-decade career saw him leading diplomatic and free trade efforts with traditional and new partners at a time of unprecedented international change for his adopted country.

This is a charming and unhurried autobiography. In truth, it seems written mostly for the author's family - with a long genealogy and plentiful tales of family folklore. There are no great revelations, no blockbusting exposés of state secrets, and only the briefest of glimpses behind the curtain of diplomacy.

It would have been lovely to have read just a bit more detail about the people the author encountered. At times, it feels a bit like the Fast Show character "...which was nice" come to life.

As a civil servant, I'm always interested to see how other countries conduct themselves behind the scenes. It's good to know that some problems are universal!

It's a gentle meander through an interesting life - but it never really invites us into the author's world. There's very little sense of what he feels, or how he reacts to the world around him.

Which makes the end - an impassioned plea to remove the UK's Queen as Head of State - somewhat surprising. We finally get a sense of the person behind the job. Certainly of interest to Kiwis who want to understand modern history a little better, and to anyone interested in the realities of diplomacy.

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. The book is available to pre-order now:

‘Understanding how the zeros and ones increasingly influence and control our lives is critical to understanding how we can reciprocate influence and control back onto those zeros and ones.’ This vital book is a call to action: to reduce online harm, to protect the integrity of our digital lives and to uphold democratic participation and inclusion. A diverse group of contributors reveal the hidden impacts of technology on society and on individuals, exploring policy change and personal action to keep the internet a force for good. These voices arrive at a crucial juncture in our relationship to fast-evolving technologies.

Possibly the most important and timely book I've read about the state of Digital Policy. Written in the aftermath of the horrific fascist/terrorist attacks on New Zealand - and in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis - this book examines some of the knotty problems facing Aotearoa.

This is not a parochial, inward facing text. All the problems it identifies are applicable worldwide. It presents a compelling case on how we should construct digital policy as we emerge from the shadow of COVID.

The section on Indigenous People's data rights, and the colonialism present in the current infrastructure, has lots of Te Reo (Māori language) phrases. That can be a bit intimidating for a newcomer - but it's nothing that a few minutes with a decent dictionary can't fix.

There were two particularly interesting questions that I was left with.

1. What's the carbon footprint of, say, GOV.UK? Do we make enough use of renewable energy? Can we schedule computationally heavy tasks for times when green energy is at its peak?
2. How do we make the language we use more inclusive? We need to take people on a journey, and if they can't understand our acronyms and jargon, we lose them.

The book is available DRM free from https://www.bwb.co.nz/

Lauren Fraser is easing into a comfortable retirement when her historian friend Ro reveals a shocking secret. Ro’s research has uncovered the attempted poisoning of a New Zealand prime minister.

Despite herself, Lauren is drawn into the mystery. Who was the would-be murderer and can they be brought to justice after thirty years? Who has been involved in covering up the plot and why? As they get closer to the truth, Lauren and Ro find themselves in danger. One death follows another, and it is no longer a cold case they have on their hands.

This gripping novel is set in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, where Lauren and her circle of lesbian friends are celebrating Jacinda Ardern’s fresh new coalition government. Will Lauren and Ro succeed in exposing malign global forces that destroyed a former government, and still operate today?

This is good knockabout fun! The assassination plot almost takes a back-seat to the lush travelogue over New Zealand. It's a seedy look at the corrupt underbelly of eighties politics, and ramifications they have decades later for anyone caught in their tangled web.

It quickly becomes apparent that this isn't a "whodunnit" but more of a "WillTheyGetAwayWithIt" - but that doesn't spoil the tension.

It's written by my wife's mother's cousin and her wife - which may colour my review.