One of America’s biggest banks accidentally transferred more than $80 trillion (£64 trillion) to a customer’s account after a “fat finger” input error by an employee.
Citigroup, one of America’s “big four” lenders, erroneously transferred $81 trillion to the account in April last year instead of the $280 requested because of a keyboard mistake by a bank staffer.
The huge sum, worth more than 20 times Britain’s entire gross domestic product (GDP), was approved after being checked by two of the bank’s employees, before being sent to the customer account the following morning.
The payment was only flagged after a third employee noticed a problem with the Wall Street giant’s overall balances, 90 minutes after the payment between two separate Citi accounts had been made, the Financial Times reported.
Citi successfully reversed the transaction a few hours later, with no funds actually leaving the lender’s coffers, as the $81 trillion transaction was between two of the bank’s own accounts.
A Citi spokesman said: “Our detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry. Our preventative controls would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank.”
The bank’s spokesman added that “a payment of this size could not actually have been executed”.
The Wall Street bank subsequently reported the “near miss” to watchdogs including the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Citi had $2.4 trillion in assets on its balance sheet in the third quarter of last year, according to its most recent financial statements from October 2024.
The investment bank previously found itself at the centre of 10 near misses in 2024 in which it mistakenly approve transactions worth $1bn or more. The figure marked a drop from a total of 13 similar incidents in 2023.
Citi said the near miss highlights the need to strengthen its own risk controls and automate more of its processes, in line with plans set out by Jane Fraser, its chief executive, in 2022.
Citi was previously fined $400m by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates America’s top banks, over the bank’s poor risk controls.
It came after Citi accidentally transferred $900m to cosmetics company Revlon, in a mistake that subsequently led to a protracted legal battle.
Citi’s erroneous payment to Revlon also led to the ousting of the bank’s former chief executive, Michael Corbat. Ms Fraser has said fixing Citi’s risk controls are a “top priority.” (The Telegraph)
