Citi Can’t Have Its $900M Back

Looked interesting but I couldn't understand how to get to something concrete with it.

It's stupid that the program doesn't show a preview of all transactions that will be executed before it does them.

My online banking has that, I don't get why software for managing 900m dollar loans doesn't have that.

What good is it if you require three people to sign off on the transaction when noone actually looks at the transactions!!

Even given the bad UI form, the error, and likely many others like it, could easily have been avoided by a more verbose confirmation. Rather than a simple warning, "money will be sent out of our accounts" a warning showing a brief synopsis of the totals and where they will be sent would be much more helpful.

A situation like this can arise without new features, whether grafted onto an existing form or not. All it takes is a use case for which the system was not designed (which seems quite likely here), but which can just about be accomplished by abusing the purpose of the existing system.

One software-independent thing Citi could have done that might have reduced the risk of procedures like this would have been a rule that the reviewers must reconvene, and all concur, before proceeding past a warning.

The software isn't Citi-built though - it's Flexcube, which is an Oracle product. Still Citi's mistake (among multiple other mistakes along the way) for not a) throwing their weight around and demanding new features or b) building something in-house.

Now that the decision is out we have more details on what caused the blunder, and it's a good (terrifying?) lesson in the importance of good system and UI design:

> Citi’s software will only let you pay principal to some lenders if you pretend to pay it to every lender, and it will only let you pretend to pay principal to every lender if you check the “just pretend” box next to “PRINCIPAL” (fine!) and “FUND” (what?) and “FRONT” (what even?).

> Raj then proceeded with the final steps to approve the transfers, which prompted a warning on his computer screen — referred to as a “stop sign” — stating: “Account used is Wire Account and Funds will be sent out of the bank. Do you want to continue?” But “[t]he ‘stop sign’ did not indicate the amount that would be ‘sent out of the bank,’ or whether it constituted an amount equal to the intended interest payment, an amount equal to the outstanding principal on the loan, or a total of both.” Because Raj intended to release “the interim interest payment to [the] [L]enders,” he therefore clicked “YES.”