American Citibank, part of the financial conglomerate Citigroup, made a colossal mistake in a bank transfer, crediting a client's account with 81 trillion USD instead of the planned 280 USD, TASS reports, with reference to the Financial Times.
The erroneous transaction was reviewed by two bank employees, neither of whom found any discrepancies. It was only the day after the transfer was registered that a third specialist noticed the balance issue and initiated a cancellation of the payment.
As the Financial Times source emphasized, the funds did not leave the Citibank banking system. The US Federal Reserve and other regulatory bodies were informed about the incident.
According to a report obtained by the publication, Citibank recorded 10 more erroneous transactions last year, totaling more than 1 billion USD, although on a smaller scale. Such incidents negatively affect the financial institution’s reputation and its assessment by U.S. banking regulators. This year, the bank has already paid fines totaling 136 million USD due to insufficient risk controls.
In 2021, Citibank was already embroiled in a major scandal that led to the resignation of its CEO and significant financial penalties. At that time, the bank mistakenly transferred 900 million USD instead of 7,8 million USD to creditors of the cosmetics company Revlon, and attempts to reverse the transaction and challenge it in court were unsuccessful.
