Man asleep at desk
A man fell asleep at his desk and transferred £189m to a pensioner (The Hamster Factor/Flickr)

A bank clerk in Germany accidentally gave away over £189m after falling asleep at his desk on the computer keyboard.

The clerk in Hessen nodded off on the '2' key, leading her to transfer €22,222,222.22 ($295m) to a pensioner who was supposed to receive €64.20 (£54.60).

The mistake was spotted by a colleague during an internal systems check and was rectified priot to transfer, but a bank supervisor, who should have noticed the error, was fired on the spot.

At an employment tribunal brought about by the supervisor, a 48-year-old unnamed woman, the court heard how she had checked over 800 documents on the day the mistake took place.

Most of the documents had been checked in just a few seconds and the court ruled that she should have been given a warning, not a dismissal.

It found that while the £189m error had been a "terrible mistake", there was no evidence to suggest she had sought to cause the bank any harm deliberately. The court also said she should be reinstated in her position at the bank.

The bank had accused the supervisor of deceiving her superiors by not checking the document and just passing them through.

It is not known what happened to the sleepy bank clerk.

Germany