US bank Citigroup almost credited about $6 billion to a customer's account in its wealth-management business by accident, after a staff member handling the transfer copied and pasted the account number into a field for the dollar figure.

The near-error, which occurred in April, was detected on the next business day and has since been reported to regulators, according to reporting by Bloomberg.

The wealth division's mistake reportedly provoked audible frustration from Andy Sieg, who had arrived just months earlier to run the unit as head of wealth management.

The banking giant has since established a companywide tool to help vet large, anomalous payments and transfers, sources said.

In a statement, Citigroup said: "We promptly identified and corrected this inputting error, which had no impact to the bank or our client. In addition, we have implemented enhanced preventative measures which are consistent with Citigroup's continuing efforts to eliminate manual processes and automate controls."

The incident happened in the same month that another part of the bank accidentally credited $81 trillion – instead of $280 – to a different client, an error that took about 90 minutes to reverse.

For concerned wealth executives, the error stirred memories of Citigroup's infamous Revlon Inc incident in 2020, when the bank accidentally transferred more than $900 million to creditors of the cosmetics company. The firm ultimately recouped the money more than two years later through a lengthy legal battle.

Both recent errors involved attempted transfers between internal accounts, reducing the risk to the bank. The process related to the $81 trillion incident has since been fully automated.

The incidents highlight Citigroup's ongoing struggle to improve risk management and controls after facing regulatory penalties for compliance issues. In January, chief executive officer Jane Fraser lowered a key profitability target, partly because the bank needed to spend more money on its "transformation" plan aimed at overhauling operations and addressing regulators' concerns.

In 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve fined Citigroup $400 million for risk management and data failures. Last year, regulators imposed an additional $136 million fine on the bank for insufficient progress in tackling these issues.

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