British bank Santander said $175 million was mistakenly paid out to 2,000 corporate and commercial customers on Christmas Day. File photo by wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
Dec. 30 (UPI) — British bank Santander said about 2,000 customers mistakenly received double payments on Christmas Day, with a total $175 million being accidentally paid out.
The bank said the money was doled out over about 75,000 transactions for about 2,000 corporate and commercial customers. The institution said a technical error was to blame for the payments.
“We’re sorry that due to a technical issue, some payments from our corporate clients were incorrectly duplicated on the recipients’ accounts,” Santander said in a statement. “None of our clients were at any point left out of pocket as a result and we will be working hard with many banks across the U.K. to recover the duplicated transactions over the coming days.”
Santander, which is owned by Spanish bank Banco Santander, said the “technical issue” was tied to a scheduling error that was “quickly identified and rectified.”
The payments included one-time and recurring transactions, which the bank said may have included employee wages and supplier payments.