Bank of England to investigate crucial CHAPS payments system crash

Bank of England governor Mark Carney last night announced an independent probe into the fault which yesterday crashed the CHAPS payment system, used to channel large payments around UK accounts.

 

The Bank of England described it as a “technical issue related to some routine maintenance of the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) payment system”, and had to process some payments manually.

 

Normally the payments system closes at 4pm, but to clear the backlog the service was open until 7.40pm. The problem was fixed by 4pm. The service is used for real-time transfers of big payments, which firms and banks rely on.

 

Consumers typically use CHAPS when making large transfers, such as when buying a house.

 

However, online transfers and the faster payments services for smaller transactions were not affected.