Money transfer in movies
Two days back suddenly it hit me — all the movie scenes where they show some kind of electronic money transfer taking place are //so// wrong! Think about it, picture the scene: the bad guys are trying to transfer a gazillion dollars to their secret account in Switzerland, holding some hostage at gunpoint; they show the progress bar, the numbers ticking away, the account draining out… and right when the progress bar hits 99.99% our hero/heroine blasts in and somehow interrupts the transfer and saves the world.
It happened in MI, most of the Bond movies, tons of hindi movies, Swordfish and is still going on.
Why is it wrong? Well because money is not data! If I transfer a file thats 10 times larger than another file, its going to take 10 times longer. But money transfers are a **single** operation, irrespective of the amount involved (in the general case. There might be cases where some transactions take place in steps, but even then the number of steps might not always be proportional to the amount).
So for one, there should be //no// progress bar! Electronic money transfers are atomic. One might get “it happened” or “it couldn’t happen”, but its totally wrong to depict that somehow “it didn’t happen because we were interrupted at 99.9%”!!
I know its not a big realization, but somehow I found it very very funny. :-) And interesting. That how when I first saw those movies, it seemed so natural. That but //of course// it can be interrupted at 99.9% and nothing would go wrong.
Hmm… it’s something I’ve been very intereseted in too. It seems to I’ve heard (from a very knowledgeable guy I can trust) that it really happes in some way like that. According to that guy the thing of course was not because piles of data were transferred. The thing alligedly is that the UI is really progress bar style to give people at the terminal time to realize that they perhaps are doing something wrong and give them time to terminate transaction if necessary. Again: I’m nowhere 100% sure. I would like to hear from somebody who really knows this thing for sure.
Hmm… it’s something I’ve been very intereseted in too. It seems to I’ve heard (from a very knowledgeable guy I can trust) that it really happes in some way like that. According to that guy the thing of course was not because piles of data were transferred. The thing alligedly is that the UI is really progress bar style to give people at the terminal time to realize that they perhaps are doing something wrong and give them time to terminate transaction if necessary. And I really don’t remember what should happen if transaction is terminated 99% complete – perhaps it really should roll all the way back. Again: I’m nowhere 100% sure. I would like to hear from somebody who really knows this thing for sure.
Anton: you raise an interesting issue. This is largely an HCI problem I guess. That as humans, we are psychologically conditioned for something “big” like a money transfer to take some time. And perhaps it gives us some reassurance that we can actually _see_ the progress bar moving.
I’ll try to find someone who has a more authoritative answer to this. BTW, was your double-comment intentional or accident? Just want to make sure nothing is broken at my end.
Well, with my recently gained ‘expertise’ in financial transactions, I can say that very few transactions are completed in a few minutes, let alone few seconds as shown in the movies.
From the time a user gives his/her assent for a transaction it may take anywhere from one to three days for the transaction to be completed (T+1 or T+3 closing). Increase the delay and complexity when the transaction is taking place across borders with the amount being a billion plus dollars!
In India too, you need at least one working day to realize inter-bank e-transfers!
Just my two cents…
Nandz.