> Honestly with names like "front" and "wash" the whole thing should be checked by tax officials. The words probably mean something else, but ... wow

It's funny how worked up and self righteous one could get even while recognizing that they don't actually understand the concept. It's particularly amusing that you were alarmed by "front" (what, like a mafia front?) when there's also a "back".

I have never worked at Citi but I can make reasonable guesses as to what these accounts are.

Wash is a term that means "funds did not leave the firm" (you may have heard the expression "it's a wash" to mean "things net out to 0."

Front and back may have to do with direction of funds flow, or perhaps a hierarchy of accounts (like "we are pulling from account X on the back-end and into account Y on the front-end")

Not saying these are exactly right, point is that as someone who's been in finance for a long time these are totally innocent.

worked up? self righteous? alarmed? You seem to read with a lot of -bad-faith- (edit: no that's the wrong idiom.. ähm read while assuming the worst?). Take a step back and relax. It's obviously not about mafia fronts and money laundry ^^ The whole story is about the user interface being unclear and not being understood by those who use it. Could have made it clearer i am playing with that theme ... maybe an /S would have helped, or one of those smiley things i keep hearing about that are so uncommon on this page.

It's something about the way your original was worded. I think if you had written only the first sentence, the joke would have been clearer.

A wash account is a normal financial term. Just like front- and backoffice. Also, nostro, loro, vostro, clearing accounts.