The German bank transferred the wrong euro 5 billion German netizens
According to us media reports, due to a system error, the German state-owned development bank KfW mistakenly transferred 5 billion euros to four banks in February. This is not the first time the bank has made such a mistake. During the financial crisis, the bank also mistakenly transferred hundreds of millions of euros to Lehman Brothers on the day it filed for bankruptcy.
Due to a system error, KfW's transactions were repeated multiple times, resulting in its erroneous transfer. The bank said it had identified the system issue and recovered the erroneously transferred funds without incurring any losses.
"KfW identified the system error early in the process, mitigated the unwanted operation in a timely manner and initiated the necessary processes to analyse the cause," the bank said in a statement. "The error has been identified and corrected. The overpaid funds have been successfully recovered."
The bank said: "KfW immediately began a comprehensive internal and external audit to identify the root cause of the problem and draw corresponding conclusions."
People familiar with the matter told the media that KfW's mistake was first discovered by the Bundesbank, which told KfW that KfW had overdrawn its Bundesbank account.
The German state-owned bank KfW admitted on the 24th that the bank had made a big oolong on February 20 this year and mistakenly transferred a total of 5 billion euros (about 37.10 billion yuan) to four different banks. Fortunately, the Bundesbank reminded that the total amount of money was not small.
According to the Financial Times, the error was caused by a "configuration error" made by an "experienced programmer" operating the bank's internal payment software, which caused the system to "automatically repeat instructions" and repeatedly transfer money to the four banks. The amount of money transferred by mistake was even more than the bank had admitted, as much as 6 billion euros. Fortunately, it was found in time and the money was returned in full.
KfW, the German bank best known for an oolong during the 2008 financial crisis, has been dubbed "Germany's dumbest bank". On September 15, 2008, the same day that the US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, the bank bizarrely transferred 300 million euros to the Lehman Brothers account through the automatic payment system. Three executives of the bank were subsequently suspended. According to Xinhua News Agency
In fact, this is not the first time KfW has "done something stupid".
On September 15, 2008, Kfw paid more than 300 million euros to Lehman Brothers through an automated payment system. The same day, Lehman filed for bankruptcy.
KfW argued that the transfer was part of a swap transaction, but critics pointed out that the day before the transfer, news of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy was already flying, and KfW should have been alarmed.
The incident drew strong criticism from German media and government officials. After the incident, Bild, Germany's largest-selling newspaper, called KfW "the dumbest bank in Germany".
Ironically, KfW's official website claims that it has been named the safest bank in the world by Global Finance magazine.
However, KfW is not the only bank to have made mistakes.
In 2015, Deutsche Bank's foreign exchange unit mistakenly transferred $6 billion into a hedge fund client's account. Deutsche recovered the money a day later.
