Citigroup accidentally credited a customer’s account with a staggering $81 trillion instead of the intended $280, a mistake that took hours to correct, according to a report by the Financial Times on Friday.
The error, which occurred in April last year, went unnoticed by both the payments employee who processed it and a second official responsible for reviewing the transaction before it was approved for the next day’s processing. A third employee eventually caught the mistake about 90 minutes after the payment had been processed, and the transaction was reversed several hours later.
No funds actually left Citigroup, and the bank reported the incident to the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). In a statement to Reuters, Citi emphasized that its internal controls quickly detected the inputting error between two ledger accounts, allowing for a prompt correction. The bank assured that neither it nor the client was impacted by the incident.
This case is part of a broader operational challenge for Citigroup. Last year, the bank reported 10 near misses involving $1 billion or more, down from 13 in the previous year. Citi has been working to improve its risk management and compliance systems following regulatory scrutiny.
In July 2023, the bank was fined $136 million for slow progress in addressing compliance issues. Additionally, in 2020, it faced a $400 million penalty due to failures in risk management and data governance. CFO Mark Mason has since stated that Citi is increasing investments in data, technology, and regulatory compliance to improve its financial reporting and oversight.
