It appears that Apple iPhone App developers are having difficulty getting paid at the moment, according to this story from The Register. (Gizmodo.com carries the story here, Techcrunch.com has it here,

According to The Register:

A backlog in Apple’s payment processing system has left some iPhone developers still waiting for February’s payments, leaving some at risk of bankruptcy and considering legal action against the lads in Cupertino.

Desperate developers have been told to stop e-mailing the iTunes finance system and to wait patiently for their money – in some cases tens of thousands of dollars – while Apple sorts things out.

It would appear from comments and coverage elsewhere that this problem has been occurring for some developers for longer (since late 2008 according to the TechCrunch article and this article from eequalsmcsquare.com (an iphone community site))

The article goes on to explain that:

According to postings on the iPhone developer community Apple has been blaming bank errors and processing problems for the delays. Complainants are being told that payments have been made, that bank errors have caused rejections[.]

One commenter on the story on The Register, commenting anonymously, attempts to shed some light on this with an explanation that, from an Information Quality point of view, sounds plausible.

• Two American banks merged (was it Washington Mutual and Chase?) and the SWIFT code for the customers of one had to change. The bank didn’t tell the customers and Apple had the payments refused. Apple seem to be manually changing the codes in the payment system, but that’s separate from the web interface where devs enter their bank details.
• A lot of American banks don’t have SWIFT codes at all. Royalties from e.g. EU sales are sent from Apple (Luxembourg) S.A.. The chances of this money arriving at Bank Of Smalltown seem slim at best.

This what we have here is a failure to manage master data correctly it seems, and also a glaring case of potentially incomplete data which would impact the ability for funds to flow freely from the App Store to the Developers.

The Anonymous commenter’s explanation would seem to hold water because Apple are claiming that “bank errors have caused rejections”. Having had some experience with electronic funds transfer processes, one of the reasons a funds transfer would fail would be if the data used was incorrect, inconsistent or inaccurate. This would happen if the SWIFT codes of Bank A had to change (or if Bank A and Bank B had to have new codes issued).

However, some commenters based in the EU have reported that they have given Apple updated bank details and are still awaiting payment, which suggests there may be yet another potential root cause at play here that may yet come to light.

Apple still owes me more than $7,500 since September 2008 for US and World regions. I supplied them with a new SWIFT code and a intermediary bank they could use last month, but still nothing. Sent them tons of emails but I never got to know what is really wrong/faulty so I just tried to give them another SWIFT code that DNB (Biggest bank in Norway) uses. All other region payments have been OK.” (quote from comment featured on this article)

So, for the potential impact on iPhone Apps developers cash flow, and the PR impact on one of Apple’s flagship services, and the fact that management of the accuracy, completeness and consistency of key master data for a process, this counts as an IQ Trainwreck.