In what might be the most extreme banking error ever recorded, Citigroup accidentally credited a client’s account with a staggering $81 trillion when it meant to send only $280. The eye-watering mistake occurred in April last year and has recently come to light, highlighting serious concerns about the bank’s operational systems.
The error passed through not one, but two levels of review before being caught approximately 90 minutes after posting. According to internal documents, a third employee eventually detected inconsistencies in the bank’s account balances, and the payment was reversed several hours later.
The astronomical error stemmed from an unusual sequence of events and an outdated software interface. The original transaction—four payments totaling $280 destined for a customer’s escrow account in Brazil—had been initially flagged for potential sanctions violations in March. Although quickly cleared, the payments remained stuck in Citigroup’s system.
To resolve the issue, the bank’s technology team instructed a payments processing employee to manually input the transaction using a “rarely used back-up screen.” The critical flaw? This legacy system pre-populated the amount field with 15 zeros, which employees were supposed to delete before entering the correct amount—something that evidently didn’t happen in this case.
Despite the alarming figure, Citigroup has confirmed that no funds actually left the bank, and the situation was classified as a “near miss.” The bank disclosed the incident to federal regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
“While there was no impact to the bank or our client, the episode underscores our continued efforts to continue eliminating manual processes and automating controls,” Citigroup stated.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. According to internal reports, Citigroup experienced 10 “near misses” of $1 billion or greater last year alone, slightly down from 13 similar incidents the previous year. Banking experts note that near misses of this magnitude are unusual across the U.S. banking industry.
The error raises questions about Citigroup’s progress in addressing longstanding operational issues, which first came to public attention in 2020 when the bank accidentally sent $900 million to creditors of cosmetics group Revlon. That mistake resulted in regulatory fines, the departure of then-CEO Michael Corbat, and consent orders requiring the bank to fix its systems.
Current CEO Jane Fraser has described fixing Citigroup’s regulatory issues as her “top priority,” but progress appears slow. Last year, the bank was fined $136 million by federal regulators for failing to correct problems in risk control and data management.
