Citigroup stumbled into a colossal financial gaffe this April when employees accidentally credited a customer account with $81 trillion instead of $280. You read that right. Trillion. With a T. The blunder slipped past two employees before a third caught it—90 minutes after the transaction posted. Talk about a delayed double-take.
When human error meets banking systems, $81 trillion materializes where $280 should be. Oops doesn’t quite cover it.
The bank quickly classified this as a “near miss,” banking speak for “we almost royally messed up.” Thankfully, no funds actually left the bank. Just imagine that withdrawal request. Citigroup hastily reversed the transaction within hours and sheepishly disclosed the incident to federal regulators, calling it merely an “inputting error.” Understatement of the century.
This wasn’t Citigroup’s first rodeo with massive mistakes. They’ve had 10 near misses exceeding $1 billion in 2024 alone. An improvement from last year’s 13 similar blunders. Progress, right? Their track record includes accidentally wiring $900 million to Revlon creditors in 2020 and an employee adding an extra zero to a trade in 2022, triggering a European stock market panic. Oops.
Regulators aren’t amused by these slip-ups. U.S. watchdogs slapped them with $136 million in fines this year for operational gaps. British authorities extracted $79 million for that 2022 trading mishap. These incidents have put CEO Jane Fraser under intense pressure, with Senator Elizabeth Warren pushing for growth restrictions on the banking giant.
The bank claims they’re working to eliminate manual entry in payment processing. About time. They’ve launched a “Transformation” project with 12,000 employees tasked with overhauling their clearly problematic systems. For perspective, the erroneous $81 trillion sum actually exceeded the GDP of all countries combined, including the United States’ $29.72 trillion economy.
Citigroup isn’t alone in the financial fumble club. JPMorgan Chase got hit with a $350 million fine in March for inadequate oversight. The incident was widely covered by major news outlets, with Financial Times and CBS News highlighting the scale of the error and the bank’s response. Banks now use the aptly named “Revlon Clause” to protect against costly mistakes—allowing them to demand repayment of accidentally sent funds. Because apparently, “sorry, we need our $81 trillion back” needed formal documentation.
