European bank Santander mistakenly transferred 75,000 transactions amounting to ?130 million (approximately 208.5 billion KRW) to customer accounts on Christmas Day. [Photo by CNN]
[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Sumi] A European bank accidentally transferred 200 billion won to thousands of people on Christmas Day.
According to foreign media including the US CNBC on the 31st (local time), the European bank Santander mistakenly transferred 75,000 transactions amounting to 130 million pounds (approximately 208.5 billion won) to customer accounts.
This mistake occurred during the process of transferring salaries to employees from about 2,000 company accounts within the UK.
Some employees received double payments for two months' salaries. The same situation also happened with payments to partner companies.
Regarding this, the bank explained that the incident occurred due to scheduling management issues. They also stated that they are making efforts to recover the incorrectly paid amounts.
The bank said, "We regret the mistaken transfers from corporate customers' accounts to recipients' accounts due to a technical issue," and added, "We will work hard with many banks across the UK over the coming days to restore the duplicate transactions."
However, foreign media forecast that the restoration work will not be easy, as a significant portion of the mistakenly transferred funds ended up in bank accounts operated by competing banks.
Meanwhile, according to CNBC, some payroll officers at certain companies faced difficulties due to this incident. One payroll officer said, "I ruined my holiday thinking I had mistakenly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. I thought it was my fault."
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