The discovery of the mother of all accounting errors at a troubled bank under government protection has made Germany some 55 billion euros richer, the Finance Ministry said late on Friday.
The discovery of a whopping accounting error has made Germany instantly 55.5 billon euros ($78.5 billion) richer.
The error was caused by a double booking at the state-owned bad bank, created to handle the toxic assets of bankrupt Hypo Real Estate bank, which was nationalized in 2009.
Freeing up the cash means that German national debt, as a percentage of gross domestic product, dropped from 83.7 to 81.1 percent. The error was caused when accountants subtracted funds, instead of adding them.
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