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.