Citigroup erroneously credited US$81 trillion to customer account instead of US$280
- Arwa Mahdawi
- Mar 2
- 2 min read
2nd March 2025 – (New York) Citigroup mistakenly credited $81 trillion to a customer’s account instead of the intended $280, leading to a lengthy reversal process that highlights the bank’s ongoing operational issues, as reported by the Financial Times.
The incident, which took place last April, was attributed to a payments employee who overlooked the error, as well as a second official tasked with verifying the transaction before it was processed the following day. A third employee identified the mistake approximately one-and-a-half hours after the payment had been processed, but it took several additional hours to reverse the transaction.
Fortunately, no funds were transferred out of Citigroup. The bank reported this “near miss”—an event where an incorrect amount is processed but can be recovered—to both the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
In an emailed statement to Reuters, Citigroup explained that its “detective controls” swiftly caught the error between two ledger accounts, and the entry was subsequently reversed. The bank asserted that the incident had no adverse impact on either its operations or the client involved.
According to an internal report reviewed by the Financial Times, Citigroup experienced ten near misses involving amounts of $1 billion or more last year, a decrease from 13 the previous year. The bank declined to comment further on this report.
Recently, Citigroup’s CFO Mark Mason acknowledged the need for increased investment to address compliance issues, particularly in light of past regulatory penalties related to risk management and data governance. “We recognised the necessity to invest more in transforming our data and technology, as well as enhancing the quality of information in our regulatory reporting,” Mason stated.
In July, Citigroup faced a $136 million fine for inadequate progress in addressing these compliance concerns, following a more substantial $400 million penalty in 2020 for various risk management and data failures.
