Bank accidentally deposits $176 million into people’s accounts on Christmas Day

A sign hangs from a branch of Banco Santander in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010.Simon Dawson | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Thousands of people received a surprise gift on Christmas Day this year when European bank Santander accidentally deposited 130 million (US $ 176 million) in 75,000 transactions. their salaries doubled while the vendors got more than they expected.

Bank accounts operated by competing banks. "We regret that due to a technical problem, some payments from our corporate customers were incorrectly duplicated in the accounts of the recipients," a Santander spokesman told CNBC.

As a result, none of our customers have ever been out of their pockets and we will be working hard with many banks across the UK in the coming days to restore duplicate transactions. According to reports, the incident could have dampened the mood of some payrolls on Christmas Day and December 26th.

It ruined my vacation time thinking I accidentally paid hundreds of thousands. I thought I did something wrong, "a payroll manager reportedly told the BBC.

Just me and that I would get in trouble at work. The payroll manager added that Santander had not disclosed how companies should explain the second payment to employees, nor provided any information on the reimbursement, according to the report.

He said the fund recovery process is an industrial process known as the "bank troubleshooting process".

He added that he has started working with other banks in accordance with the procedure and that these banks will try to collect accidental payments from their clients' accounts and that they also have the option of withdrawing funds directly from people's accounts.