"null" Breaks Swift Bank Transfer

Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago

bfoks

15 points

8 comments

twitter.comTechstory

skepticalmixed

Debate

60/100

SwiftBankingNaming Conventions

Key topics

Swift

Banking

Naming Conventions

A company's bank transfer was disrupted because its name was 'Null', highlighting potential issues with handling null or special values in financial systems, with commenters debating the responsibility and implications.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Light discussion

First comment

40m

Peak period

4-6h

Avg / period

1.1

Key moments

01Story posted
Sep 15, 2025 at 4:09 PM EDT
4 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Sep 15, 2025 at 4:49 PM EDT
40m after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
2 comments in 4-6h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03
04Latest activity
Sep 16, 2025 at 3:58 PM EDT
4 months ago
Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (8 comments)

Showing 8 comments

ian-g

4 months ago

1 reply

It's a fascinating edge case, but also feels like a silly choice of company name for this exact reason.

What other systems are going to shut you out for your choice of company name?

RaftPeople

4 months ago

1 reply

Ok Ok, I guess we'll go with our 2nd choice of company names, it's the characters inside the quotes: " "

TheTxT

4 months ago

1 reply

Why not just a good old zero width space?

RaftPeople

4 months ago

We were saving that for when we rebrand in a couple years: Announcement, you know us as " " but as we evolve and adapt in this fast paced tech environment, we think our new name really captures the essence of what we do, the name is

hyperhello

4 months ago

1 reply

I’m sorry this happened to you, but come on. You could have called your company Not Available or named your painting Untitled or your son Deceased Stillbirth and run the risk of miscommunication.

cowboylowrez

4 months ago

I'm going to incorporate "send me a million dollars" inc

rsynnott

4 months ago

Fairly sure this is a "your (or your counterparty's) bank is broken" thing, not a "SWIFT is broken" thing. ISO 15022 (as used here) and ISO 20022 (as used by fancy modern banks who are willing to get onboard with a message format a mere 20 years old) will handle the string 'null' just fine. ISO 15022 doesn't, IIRC, really have a way to represent null the concept at all; you just wouldn't provide the relevant field.

At a guess, the message parsing by the receiving bank is likely to be broken.

landgenoot

4 months ago

It's good to see that Bobby Tables is doing well and started a business.

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ID: 45254350Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 5:51:32 PM

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