Over 100 HDFC Bank customers receive crores of rupees due to software glitch

Scores of HDFC Bank customers in Chennai have been surprised by the stark difference in their account figures after receiving up to crores of rupees mistakenly. Over 100 customers have received this extra money in their accounts, as per recent reports by the Times of India.

The bizarre fiasco started with reports on Sunday morning that 100 accounts linked to HDFC Bank’s T Nagar branch had received Rs 13 crore each, amounting to a total of Rs 1,300 crore. However, the amount that was transferred to different accounts ranged between some getting in thousands to Rs 13 crore, the bank was reported to have said. The next day, TOI reported two more such customers receiving Rs 23.8 crore, out of which Rs 18 crore went to one person’s account.

Employees are not involved in the anomalous transactions, the bank reportedly clarified. An error message was also noticed by some of the bank’s customers following a routine software update on Saturday night (May 28).

A call for enquiry into the incident has been made by CH Venkatachalam, the general secretary of All India Bank Employees Association, it was reported. He added that customers may face inconvenience if they are asked to explain this large transfers by the Income Tax department. “The computerised system must be foolproof,” TOI quoted him as saying.

The bank has said that 100 accounts saw the faulty transactions but the exact amount of ‘extra money’ deposited at customers is not confirmed. An HDFC spokesperson was quoted in the report as saying that debit block was placed on the particular accounts after proactive detection. Most of these blocks have been removed and the rest were expected to be done soon.

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