FX.co ★ German bank mistakenly transfers more than €5 billion

Germany’s state-owned development bank KfW accidentally transferred several billion dollars to four other banks, Reuters reported on Monday. The bank’s officials confirmed the mistake took place.

The bank nearly lost $5-6 billion. According to Bloomberg, the reason was a technical glitch that repeated single payments several times.

“KfW has detected the system’s incorrect behavior very early in the process, immediately mitigated the unwanted action and started the necessary process of analyzing the causes,” the bank said in a statement.

Interestingly, this was not the first erroneous transaction by the bank. Back in 2008, KfW mistakenly transferred 300 million euros to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., just as the US investment bank filed for bankruptcy. The transfer turned into a political scandal in Germany.