Imagine waking up to find $81 trillion in your bank account. That’s exactly what happened to a Citigroup client, but it wasn’t a generous gift.
Citigroup, one of the largest banks in the world, accidentally sent a jaw-dropping $81 trillion to a client’s account instead of the intended $280. The error, which occurred in April 2024, was discovered 90 minutes later by a sharp-eyed employee and quickly reversed. Though the money never left the bank, the incident raised serious concerns about Citigroup’s internal controls and technological infrastructure.
The mistake, which was fixed within 90 minutes, did not result in any money leaving the bank. However, it shocked the financial world and raised serious concerns about Citigroup’s internal controls and security measures.
How Did This Happen?
It all started with a routine transaction. A client in Brazil was supposed to receive $280 in an escrow account, but the payment got stuck due to the bank’s compliance system. A Citigroup employee manually entered the payment into a backup system to resolve the issue. This is where things went wrong.
The system had a peculiar feature—a pre-filled amount field containing 15 zeros. The employee, who was supposed to delete them before entering the correct amount, overlooked this step. Instead of typing “$280,” the system registered an eye-watering $81 trillion. Even more concerning, a second employee assigned to double-check the transaction failed to spot the error and approve the payment.
Luckily, Citigroup’s internal controls caught the error within 90 minutes. A third employee spotted the discrepancy, and the transaction was reversed before any funds could leave the bank. Citigroup quickly informed U.S. financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), reassuring them that the bank’s safeguards would have prevented any actual money from leaving.
Despite this, the blunder has fueled ongoing regulatory scrutiny over Citigroup’s risk management and technological systems.
This isn’t Citigroup’s first time in trouble over an expensive error. In 2020, the bank mistakenly wired $900 million to creditors involved in a dispute over Revlon’s debt—a significant mistake that some recipients initially refused to return. That error was blamed on outdated technology and human oversight, resulting in major regulatory fines and leadership shake-ups.
In 2024 alone, Citigroup reportedly experienced at least ten transaction errors involving $1 billion or more, highlighting an ongoing problem within the bank’s internal processes. Regulators have been pushing for improvements, but incidents like this $81 trillion mishap suggest that much work remains.
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser has prioritized fixing the bank’s problems since she assumed leadership in 2021. Still, regulators have not been pleased with how quickly things have improved. In July 2024, US regulators fined the bank $135.6 million for failing to improve risk controls and information-handling procedures.
Meanwhile, British regulators fined Citigroup $79 million in another human error at the beginning of the year for generating a short-lived collapse in European equities. Since there have been so many high-profile gaffes, some members of Congress are calling for tougher scrutiny of banking titan Citigroup.
To prevent such mishaps in the future, Citigroup has been investing billions into upgrading its technological infrastructure. CEO Fraser has launched a massive internal reform initiative to automate processes and eliminate the need for manual data entry, which has proven to be a major source of errors.
New bank leadership is charged with managing risk and technology in a bid to regain regulators’ and society’s trust. However, financial experts are warning that modernizing a banking system as enormous as Citigroup is a highly intricate and potentially years-long undertaking.
Even if harmless in the final analysis, the $81 trillion mistake illustrates a broader issue in banking: even top financial institutions are vulnerable to human fallibility and system weakness. The consequences would have been calamitous if a staggering sum like this had mistakenly been sent out of the bank.
But regulators are watching, the financial industry is nervous, and Citigroup can’t afford another close call. The $81 trillion blunder may not have had actual financial consequences, but it took some shine out of the bank’s reputation.