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Buggy Software Made Us Miss Money Laundering Scam, Says Australian Bank (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the it-all-comes-down-to-this dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Australia's Commonwealth Bank has blamed a software update for a money laundering scam that saw criminals send over AU$70m (US$55m) offshore after depositing cash into automatic teller machines. News of the Bank's involvement in the laundering scam broke last week, when Australia's financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC announced that it had found over 53,500 occasions on which the Bank failed to submit reports on transactions over $10,000. All transactions of that value are reportable in Australia, as part of efforts to crimp the black economy, crime and funding of terrorism. The news was not a good look for the Bank (CBA), because most of the cash was deposited into accounts established with fake drivers licences. Worse still is that each failure of this type can attract a fine of AU$18m, leaving CBA open to a sanction that would kill it off. Today the bank has explained the reason for its failure: "a coding error" that saw the ATMs fail to create reports of $10,000+ transactions. The error was introduced in a May 2012 update designed to address other matters, but not repaired until September 2015.

5 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Office Space by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sounds to me like a couple programmers found a way to take their retirement accounts into their own hands.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  2. Well, that's news. by hey! · · Score: 3, Funny

    I didn't know they held a pageant for that.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. "a coding error" by nastyphil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A coding error that was not caught in regression testing, and remained undetected and thus unpatched for years, breaking your organization's compliance... IS A BUSINESS ERROR.

    --
    Dialectician. Archology.
  4. Why ATM by Luthair · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why exactly is the ATM machine the piece that is doing the reporting? Shouldn't it be a central authority not some piece of hardware the a large number of people have physical access to?

  5. /. is more fun when you're half awake by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Funny

    I read the headline as "Buggy software made the United States win the Miss Money Laundering Scam according to an Australian bank." I think it's a title we would live up to.