LONDON: The Bank of England said on Thursday that a “global payments issue” was affecting the interbank payments service CHAPS, delaying some high-value and time-sensitive payments including house purchases.
CHAPS is also used for settling sterling money market and foreign exchange transactions and had an average daily turnover of 364 billion pounds ($472 billion) last year, accounting for more than 90% of total sterling payment values.
“We are mindful of the impact this is likely to have and are working closely with a third-party supplier, industry and other authorities to resolve the issue as promptly as possible,” the BoE said in a statement.
Retail payment systems, including debit cards and cash machines, were unaffected, it added.
The CHAPS system - which is operated by the BoE - has suffered technical problems before, including in August last year and in 2014 when the Real-Time Gross Settlement system, which underpins CHAPS, did not work normally for several hours.
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