A Norwegian bank loses around 80 million euros due to a decimal error. However, the error was only discovered months later because the data was incorrect. The “culprit” will not be punished, as the bank announced.
Mistakes happen to everyone, but it is particularly annoying when a small, unintentional mistake causes major damage amounting to millions of dollars. This happened to a Norwegian bank. Here an employee made a typo and caused a major financial loss.
Wrong date causes chaos and millions in losses
What kind of mistake was that? Certain data and figures were entered into a huge Excel spreadsheet at the bank. And this is exactly where the mistake happened: According to those responsible, who preferred to remain anonymous, the problem arose when the wrong date was entered. Our French colleagues from Jeuxvideo.com report on this.
Instead of November 1st, the employee entered December 1st. However, what seemed like a tiny mistake subsequently resulted in such a mess that it ultimately caused a loss of 900 million Norwegian krone. That’s the equivalent of around 80 million euros.
When did the error become apparent? The error was only discovered by the bank after a few months. The end-of-year numbers didn’t match, and although the problem was quickly identified and fixed, the damage had already been done.
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The bank doesn’t punish anyone and wants to learn from mistakes
What’s next? The bank itself stated that it did not want to punish the employee and explained that such a mistake could happen to anyone who runs “complex operations”. The bank also emphasized that it can learn from this mistake so that such losses cannot happen again. An email from the bank’s CEO to employees said:
These things just happen! We are conducting a complex operation and what surprises me most is that historically we have had very few or no such incidents. They are both super professional and an important contribution to success.
Don’t let this ruin your weekend.
(via jeuxvideo.com)
But there are also employees who want to make money when mistakes happen: An employee of a company regularly caused his company’s system to crash so that he could earn money. But when he went on vacation, it was discovered that he was behind the problems:
Employee intentionally programmed errors into his software for years so that he always had work – exposed because he was on vacation