Citigroup’s $81 Trillion Blunder: The Banking Error of the Century!
In a jaw-dropping financial mishap, Citigroup mistakenly credited a mind-blowing $81 trillion—yes, TRILLION—to a customer’s account instead of the intended $280, in what could be one of the largest transaction errors in banking history.
According to a report by the Financial Times, the stunning blunder occurred in April 2024 and shockingly slipped past two separate employees before getting the green light for processing. It wasn’t until an hour and a half after the transaction was approved that a third worker caught the error—setting off a frantic reversal operation that took several hours to complete.
A Near-Miss of Epic Proportions
Though no actual funds left Citigroup’s vaults, the error was serious enough to be flagged to U.S. financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
“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 Citi spokesperson explained in an emailed statement.
The blunder did not financially impact the customer or the bank, but it sheds light on Citi’s ongoing struggles with internal controls. The FT report revealed that the bank recorded 10 ‘near-miss’ transactions of $1 billion or more in 2024 alone, a slight improvement from 13 major errors in 2023.
A Costly Pattern?
Citigroup is no stranger to high-profile transaction errors. In 2020, the bank infamously wired $900 million by mistake to creditors of Revlon, sparking a lengthy legal battle. While the $81 trillion error was caught before any funds could be moved, it underscores the potentially catastrophic risks lurking in the world of high-speed digital banking.
With regulators closely watching, the pressure is on for Citi to tighten its financial controls—before the next error turns into an irreversible disaster.
