Bank error in your favour? $81tn credited to account by mistake

The US bank Citigroup credited a client's account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 before the "fat finger" error was caught.

- Jasper Jolly

The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.

The bank disclosed the "near miss" to the US Federal Reserve and to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank's systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system (though not literally owing to a pudgy digit hitting an extra key).