The Bank of England has reported a temporary disruption in major financial transactions caused by a “global payments issue” on Thursday. According to the Bank’s statement, the issue has now been resolved.
The affected service, known as the CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System), handles transactions worth hundreds of billions of pounds on a daily basis. The outage occurred in the late morning and resulted in a delay of approximately four hours for transactions between major commercial banks and some house purchases.
In the Bank’s latest statement, they reassured the public that the third-party supplier responsible for the issue has resolved the problem and CHAPS payments are now settling as usual. They also stated that all payments received by the Bank today will be settled by the end of the day. In case of any concerns regarding CHAPS payments, individuals are advised to contact their bank or payment service provider.
The Bank clarified that the incident was not a result of a cyber attack. However, it primarily affected the CHAPS service, which operates from Monday to Friday between 6am to 6pm. Retail payment systems, including ATMs and card payments, were not impacted by the issue. The exact number of transactions that were delayed is currently unknown.
