Citibank makes an $81 trillion error. What we know

Citi had a substantial accounting mistake that placed a fortune in a customer’s account. 

Citi’s financial error

The financial institution accidentally credited $81 trillion to a customer’s account instead of $280 before reversing the transaction hours later. 

This mistake occurred in April 2024 and was missed by a Citigroup payments worker and a second employee before it was cleared to process the next day, according to the Financial Times, who spoke with two people familiar with the matter.

A third Citi worker discovered the error an hour and a half after the payment was processed, but the transaction was later reversed. The Financial Times reported that the incident was reported to the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

What they're saying:

"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 Citigroup spokesperson wrote in an email to Business Insider. "Our preventative controls would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank." 

Has this happened to Citi before?

Dig deeper:

The massive accounting mistake by Citi was the latest error in glitches committed by the company, which has paid U.S. regulators $400 million in fines over its data management and risk controls. 

Citing an internal report, the Financial Times noted that the bank experienced 10 near misses, incidents that occur when a bank processes the wrong amount but is able to retrieve the money, of $1 billion or more in 2024, down from 13 incidents from the prior year.

Business Insider reported that Citi accidentally transferred $900 million in 2020 to Revlon creditors based on human error and outdated technology.