Bank employee takes a nap on keyboard, transfers millions

The employee was transferring €64.20 when he dozed off with his finger on the keyboard, resulting in a transfer of €222,222,222.22.

Not a matter to sleep over! A German bank employee fell asleep on the keyboard of his computer, and accidentally transferred $293 million, leading to the sacking of a supervisor, a court has heard.

The labour court, however, ruled on Monday that the supervisor was unfairly sacked for missing a multi-million-euro error by the bank clerk. The employee was transferring €64.20 when he dozed off with his finger on the keyboard, resulting in a transfer of €222,222,222.22 ($293 million).

Judges in the state of Hesse said the supervisor should have only been reprimanded.

The incident took place in April last year, the BBC reported.

The 48-year-old supervisor, an employee of the bank since 1986, told the court she did not notice the error and approved the transaction.

Another colleague spotted the mistake later and corrected it.

The court heard that on the day of the erroneous transaction, the supervisor checked 812 documents for mistakes, with most taking just over a second of scrutiny.