A Deutsche Bank junior employee accidentally sent a hedge fund client $6 billion while their boss was on holiday

The news of the incident comes as the German bank announced a major overhaul on Sunday under new CEO John Cryan

A man enters Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany June 9, 2015 (Reuters/Ralph Orlowski)

A payment mistake by a junior banker has nearly cost Deutsche Bank billions at a time when it is already under intense scrutiny from regulators.

The junior staff member was working unsupervised for the foreign exchange sales team when they accidently sent $6 billion to a US-based hedge fund client. The employee mistakenly processed the order as a “gross figure” instead of as a “net value” while their boss was on holiday this summer, according to the Financial Times.

Deutsche Bank retrieved the money on the following day and reported the transaction to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve.

Such mistakes are referred to as “fat finger” trades, when a keyboard error in the financial markets leads to traders placing an order to buy or sell of much larger size than intended. Although errors of this kind are common, they are rarely of this size, according to the report.

The employee’s name has not been released. A spokesman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

The news of the incident comes as the German bank announced a major overhaul on Sunday under new CEO John Cryan. The bank is splitting its corporate banking and securities business in two in a bid to restore its reputation and profitability.

"The Supervisory Board's guiding principle, in light of the Bank's Strategy 2020, was to reduce complexity of the Bank's management structure enabling it to better meet client demands and requirements of supervisory authorities," the bank said in a statement

The company has paid up to €12.3 billion euros ($14 billion) to settle regulatory probes and lawsuits since the beginning of 2008, according to calculations by Bloomberg based on company and court filings.