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The third-largest bank in the US accidentally credited trillions of dollars to a customer’s balance in a massive payment error, according to a new report.
While attempting to add $280 to the customer’s balance, Citigroup mistakenly credited the client with $81 trillion, reports the Financial Times.
The payment, for an account in Brazil, was manually executed due to sanctions concerns using a rarely-used system – with an employee failing to correct a pre-filled field of 15 zeros.
The transfer happened in April of 2024, and the customer’s account maintained the whopping balance for several hours.
The error slipped past two people who work at the bank and was luckily caught by a third employee in what the bank described as a “near miss.”
The report cites a “person with knowledge of the matter” who says the transfer was disclosed to both the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Citigroup noted that its “detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry,” stating that its internal systems would also have prevented any of the money from actually leaving the account.
According to the report, internal documents show Citigroup reported a total of 10 near miss events in 2024, with each erroneous transaction amounting to $1 billion or more.
