Bank of England’s RTGS, CHAPS ‘settling normally’ following outage

The Bank of England has confirmed that a “technical issue” affecting its Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) service and CHAPS high value payments system has since been resolved.

Both systems are now open and operating, having been closed for a period yesterday (14 August).

RTGS is the infrastructure that holds accounts for banks, building societies and other institutions, allowing the movement of money in real-time between account holders.

CHAPS, which stands for Clearing House Automated Payment System, is a sterling same-day system used to settle high-value wholesale payments, and time-critical payments, according to the BoE.

However, the central bank revealed that yesterday morning, a technical issue prevented RTGS and CHAPS from opening.

At 12pm yesterday, the BoE said: “The issue has been resolved and settlement will resume shortly.”

In an update at 4.45pm, the Bank added: “The issue has been resolved and all CHAPS payments submitted to the Bank are settling normally.

“We do not anticipate that there will be any outstanding payments to settle when we close the system this evening.”

The central bank has not revealed what caused the outage.