There are two types of people when it comes to money. Some check their bank daily to make sure all their ducks are in a row, and some simply tap and go, only checking their bank balance when they have to and usually living with the motto of, “If I don't know, it can't hurt me.”
Still, one happy soul might've woken up one day to realize their bank had credited his account with a life-changing sum.
We're not just talking about $100,000 here, or even $1 million. Imagine loading up your internet banking app and finding out your new balance is a tasty $81 trillion.
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As Elon Musk's current net worth is $353.2 billion and there are NO trillionaires in the world, it would make you far and away the richest person in the world.
In fact, considering Apple is only worth $3.57 trillion, it would make you 23 times richer than the world's biggest company.
Not bad for a hard day's work.
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Obviously, giving one person $81 trillion would destroy the economy, and for this trillionaire, their newfound fortune wasn't long for this world. As reported by the Financial Times, Citigroup was supposed to send $280, but a 'fat finger' error apparently occurred in April 2024.
Being missed by both a payments employee and then a second official who was assigned to check the transaction, it was eventually picked up by a third member of staff who spotted a problem with the bank's account balances.
Although it was caught just 90 minutes after the payment was posted, an eternal account claims it took several hours to reserve it.
A spokesperson for Citigroup reiterated that "detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry," with these mechanisms ensuring it “would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank."
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Citigroup concluded: “While there was no impact to the bank or our client, the episode underscores our continued efforts to continue eliminating manual processes and automating controls."
While we can all have a bit of a joke about it, the FT warns the mistake could "hinder the bank’s attempt to persuade regulators that it has fixed long-standing operational issues."
The Financial Times claims that there were 10 near misses of funds accounting for $1 billion or more at Citi in 2024, and although it's down from 13 near misses in 2023, the bank declined to comment.
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It comes after a red-faced moment where Citi accidentally sent $900 million to a group of creditors involving the Revlon makeup brand and U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman decreed in 2020 that the transfers were "final and complete transactions, not subject to revocation." This blunder was so infamous that banks will now tend to insert a 'Revlon Clause' into documents to ensure that mistakes are paid back.
Looking at the bigger picture, the reality is that the $81 trillion likely would've never been processed due to being too big to go through Citigroup's systems. A 2023 report estimated that the total global wealth is $108.6 trillion, and with the USA having $46.2 trillion of that, giving a single person $81 trillion is pretty laughable.