In one of the ‘biggest blunders in banking history’, the judge ruled that Citibank cannot get back $650 million it wired by mistake. (Read more details here)
In this blog article, we want to emphasize the importance to your business of:
- Quality controls and checking procedures
- Attention to detail
- The importance of figures in your business!
You really wonder how this could happen; how could an organisation in the banking and finance industry, with all their protocols, procedures and authorisations get this transaction so wrong?
Of course, most of our bank accounts would definitely notice if we tried to transfer USD8million, let alone 100 times that. And you would have thought that the receiving institutions would transfer back the overpaid amounts, but not in New York apparently.
It goes to show that even the big guys can get it really wrong, let’s not let that type of mistake happen in our own Australian businesses. How are our authorisation procedures for checking of errors? Recording of invoices so invoices aren’t being paid twice? If you’re still a bit quiet as a result of COVID, and you’ve been relying on staff to know your figures, it’s a good chance to really get to know the detail of your financials, and the authorisation procedures.
And grab a glass of wine or whatever you drink and thank your lucky stars you weren’t the person in Citibank who sent the payment off.
