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The incident took place in late February, when Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) erroneously transferred around €5 billion ($5.4 billion) to four other financial institutions, Bloomberg reported.
The bank mistakenly transferred the hefty sum due to a “human error owing to a configuration mistake,” according to a statement from the bank, emailed to Bloomberg. The amount of mistakenly allocated funds might even be as high as €6 billion, according to an unnamed person familiar with the situation, cited by Bloomberg.
“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 statement reads.
The “configuration error” was made by an “experienced programmer” who worked with the bank’s internal payment software, the Financial Times reported. The mistake resulted in an “automated loop,” which led to four automated payments......[READ MORE]