Balurghat (West Bengal) Jan 20 (IANS): A school teacher in this town of South Dinajpur got the shock of his life when he found his bank account showing a balance of nearly Rs. 500 billion!

Parijat Saha, while making a usual online check of his State Bank of India (SBI) account Sunday found it showing a transaction of Rs.496 billion. Saha, though dumb struck on seeing the huge amount, informed the bank authorities about the anomaly.

A SBI official said it was merely a false entry erroneously shown because of some problem faced by the internet service provider whose service Saha utilised that day.

"The amount was merely a transaction that was shown to have been made from his (Saha) account. The amount was never credited to his account. Such an occurrence is normal and usually happens because of fault of the internet service provider," the bank's assistant general manager Tapan Mitra told IANS.

Mitra also said the bank has the proper infrastructure to counter such problems, adding that a probe has been initiated to identify the service provider as well as to take appropriate action.

"The bank internet system has various layers of firewall security to prevent such mistakes. That is why the amount was not credited to his account, it merely appeared as a transaction and the account balance was not affected," added Mitra.