Citigroup accidentally transfers $81 trillion – a financial scandal!

Citigroup accidentally transfers $81 trillion – a financial scandal!

An incredible mistake at Citigroup caused a stir: the bank accidentally transferred a staggering $81 trillion - about €77 trillion - to a customer's account. As the Financial Times reported, the original intention was only to transfer $280. The massive amount came about because two payment department employees overlooked a serious error when verifying the transaction. It took the bank hours to reverse the near-miss after a third employee discovered the amount.

Operational difficulties revealed

Despite the frightening incident, Citigroup made it clear that no money ultimately flowed out of the bank and that the large sum was just an accounting error. The bank immediately reported the incident to relevant US authorities, including the Federal Reserve. There have already been 10 similar near-misses within the bank in the past year, involving amounts in excess of a billion dollars being processed Market screener has shown.

Citigroup has repeatedly announced measures to improve its internal controls in the past. In light of the current incident, the need for these steps has become clear. A month ago, Citigroup CFO Mark Mason revealed that the bank plans to invest more in improving its compliance processes to avoid future mistakes like this. Last year, Citigroup was fined $136 million for failing to make sufficient progress in addressing its compliance issues, showing how serious the institution's internal challenges are.