"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to announce that we have got the approval for our Bank Anonymous project from this government.” Philip Wilson, Chairman of Bank International, opened his speech.
As he talked about the bank's achievements in the last quarter, few of his employees, circulated copies of the brochure to hundreds of audience gathered that night in Hotel Grande, NJ.
Chairman continued "I would like to highlight some of the features of this Bank Anonymous project.
* Bank Anonymous is one of the first steps towards going completely digital and completely anonymous in banking.
* Physical bank will only be located at its headquarters and will have a customer service department.
* Even the physical bank at the headquarters will not know who its customers are"
As his employees completed circulating the copy, one of the reporters asked
"Are you going to change the way in which Bank International works today?"
"No, Bank International will continue to work as it works today. This Bank Anonymous or BA project will be applied on a completely new subsidiary of ours- AIB international."
The audience read the brochure as the chairman continued with his BA project.
* Bank at no point will know who the account holder is
* Customers, can start an account by depositing a minimum of 50 dollars.
* Deposits and withdrawals can be done at any of our booths.
* Each booth will have a Deposit section and withdrawal section
* Deposit section will have a machine that will collect your money and credit it to the account number you specify. You can start a new account from a Deposit section.
* Withdrawal section is similar to the ATMs we so far had. However, you will not need a card. You just have to login with your account number and password.
* Balance enquiry and money transfers to other AIB account holders could be done online. You need to login with your account number and your password.
The media raised a lot many questions. The system designer Mark Brown took over the stage and answered them all. The discussion went on for more than an hour.
"When the customer makes a money transfer to a non-AIB account, wouldn't anyone relate the non-AIB account holder with the AIB account number"
“A very good question, and indeed here is where we will differentiate ourselves from other bankers. We are introducing a concept called dynamic fake account number for any transaction the customer may do. This fake account number is a 25 digit number that our customer can chose online (if available) for his account and can share it with whoever he wants to make a transaction with. The customer can reserve an available 25 digit number for a certain period of time, do his transactions with this fake account number and can release the reservation. For his next transaction, he can very well choose another 25 digit fake account number.
It is the fake account number that will be shared with the outer world and this fake account number is only 'alive' for the period our customer wants it to.” Mark continued
“In a similar sense, if a non-AIB account holder makes a money transfer to an AIB account, he can't be related to any particular AIB account. Every time the transfer is done only to a fake account number. And the AIB customer can very well change this fake account number for his next transaction.”
“Can the account holder make an online purchase without revealing his identity?" one reporter asked.
"The online purchases are similar to money transfers to non-AIB bank accounts.
The customer shares with the store, his AIB fake account number and tells him that he would be transferring money from that fake account number on a particular date.
After he transfers, he asks the store to ship the product to a billing address.
It doesn't matter even though he shares his address to the store. Because whatever he has shared with the store is only the fake account number and nothing (except for the current purchase) can be traced out of this - because our customer may be using a totally new account number for his next transaction.
We need to note here that it is not only the concealing of account holder's information that keeps him anonymous from his transactions, but also the very concept of dynamic fake account number.
I mean to say that if any of our customer's transactions require an identity, then the scope of his identity is only limited to that transaction. For he's gonna change his fake account number for the next transaction."
"Don't you think, government should be, at any point be able to track anyone's account information" an old reporter asked.
"This seems to be ideal for the bad guys" a young reporter nearby chuckled.
"We believe, it is the right of an individual to keep his monetary transactions private and we just provide a means for it. As you might have very well known, government has agreed to this project after a 3 year debate in the House.
The decision shows the government's respect for an individual's privacy" the chairman replied.
"This is bullshit" the old reporter whispered to his young colleague.
"How does the customer login to his account? Does he have to remember his real account number or fake account number?"
"Whichever the customer can remember, our system should support him logging into his account with either his real account number or the fake account number that he is currently using. However, if he want's to have a transaction with other people, he needs to share only his fake account number. "
"Do you think, this can technically work?" the young man asked the old reporter.
"You bet. they would have spent millions on research for this project"
"What if the government wants you to get the account holder's information?"
"We will not be able to provide it even if we wanted to. Our system will not ask for or maintain any of the account holder's information"
"I really doubt, if this is gonna work” the young man looked at the old reporter.
A few months later, at Newton High School, Hillsville…
“Looks like the country is moving towards anonymous banking” lecturer Frank Moore walked across the classroom “I want everyone of you to be aware of what is happening outside this classroom. I encourage you all to try setting up an account in AIB international for yourselves”
“Why does he always want us to do something that’s not in our curriculum” student Jane whispered.
The lecturer continued “this is not an assignment and I am not going to check later on” to Jane’s relief.
“But I know, I have already asked for thesis submission. I will check that tomorrow” the lecturer said before closing the book.
“My God! Why can’t he forget about that” Jane put her hands on her chin and leaned forward on the desk.
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