Bizarre! Bank employee  transfers Rs 20000000000 to another account and then…, it happened in…

It may surprise you, but it’s true that such an incident occurred in 2012 in Germany, where a sleepy bank employee accidentally transferred Rs 2,000,000,000 instead of another amount.

The employee, exhausted from work, rested his head on the desk while holding down a key, which accidentally processed the transaction. The simple mistake turned into a nightmare when he realized that 222,222,222.22 euros (approximately Rs 2,000 crore) had been transferred to another account.

Fortunately, an alert employee noticed the mistake and stopped the transaction before it was completed.

The supervisor had to pay the price for the mistake as he was terminated from her service. But, later a court in Hesse ruled in favour of the employee while terming the termination as ‘unfair’. The court was of the view that it was the job of the supervisor to check but she does not deserve a severe punishment of firing. Judges made their point stating that supervising 812 transactions a day is not possible as she probably gives a second to a transaction and it is almost impossible to check each transaction everyday. 

The court did not find any malicious intent against the supervisor and stated that a formal warning was good enough to remind her duties with more alertness. The judges also pulled up the bank for placing excessive anticipation from an employee. 

The incident had kicked off a debate over online transactions as several people were in favour of better safeguards in banking operations.