“Despite the fact that a payment of this size could not actually have been executed, our detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry,” a Citigroup spokesperson said in an emailed response. “Our preventative controls would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank.”
Citigroup Inc. erroneously credited US$81 trillion ($109.22 trillion) to a customer’s account instead of US$280 last April before reversing the transaction hours later, according to the Financial Times.
The transfer was missed by two employees and detected by a third employee 90 minutes after it was posted, the report said. No funds left the bank, and it was disclosed as a “near miss” to the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to the report.
