Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, has said that a glitch in the computer systems of its Japanese securities unit led to the company mistakenly placing a $31 billion order for convertible bonds in the videogame designer Capcom.
UBS Securities Japan said human error - so-called 'fat finger syndrome' - had not been to blame for ordering 100,000 more bonds than it wanted. The company had intended to place a 30 million yen cross trade to simultaneously buy and sell bonds but the technological error meant it placed a three trillion yen buy order instead.
In terms of monetary value, the incident was the biggest botched trade in the history of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) but fortunately for UBS, it was cancelled at no cost to the bank and had little effect on the markets.
UBS has been involved in two previous trade errors on the Tokyo bourse. In 2001, it mistakenly sold stock in the advertising firm Dentsu and four years later, it profited from a mix-up at Mizuho Securities when a trade sold 610,000 shares for one yen each, rather than selling one share for 610,000 yen.
That incident prompted the TSE to introduce a new rule allowing traders to cancel large erroneous trades.
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