Intelligent Fin.tech Issue 22 | Page 29

WHAT IS CHAPS ? CLEARBANK ’ S GUIDE TO THE UK ’ S HIGH-VALUE PAYMENT SCHEME

The UK has over 500 financial institutions handling millions daily , enabled by payment schemes and centralised bodies setting rules for fund transfers . ClearBank ’ s guide details CHAPS , the UK ’ s real-time , high-value settlement system , ensuring same-day , irrevocable transfers between member banks .

CASHING IN

The CHAPS system has been in operation since 1984 . In its first year of operation , the system transmitted an average of 7,000 payments with a total value of around £ 5 billion . Since then , the number of CHAPS payments has grown significantly and in April 2024 alone , it processed 4.6 million payments worth £ 7.3 trillion over 21 settlement processing days .

What is CHAPS ?
CHAPS is a same-day electronic bank-tobank transfer system designed for highvalue , time-critical payments . It provides rapid and secure money transfers between UK banks and has operated under the supervision of the Bank of England since 2017 . CHAPS transactions are processed Monday – Friday ( excluding bank holidays ), and payments must be submitted by a specified cut-off time for same-day processing .
As the high-value payment scheme for the UK , CHAPS Payments are commonly used by consumers for higher-value transactions such as property purchases . Businesses and other Financial Institutions ( FIs ) use
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