CHAPS Clearing Company Ltd

The Clearing House Automated Payment System (CHAPS) is the only UK payment system that guarantees real-time finality, of any value, in "Central Bank money" as each payment instruction settles. The scheme is run by CHAPS Clearing Company Limited which, alongside the Bank of England as the RTGS System Operator, manages day-to-day business operations of the company. CHAPS continues to be one of the largest RTGS services in the world, offering an efficient, risk-free and reliable same-day payments mechanism to meet the sterling RTGS payment requirements of its 23 Participants. In addition, over 5,000 financial institutions also make CHAPS payments and settle through agency arrangements with the Direct Participants. CHAPS is also a critical mechanism for ensuring liquidity in the financial markets. Most of the daily value processed by CHAPS is from wholesale transactions where CHAPS acts as the portal through which international sterling flows take place. CHAPS is used by banks, building societies and other payment service providers to pay each other. However, it is most generally known within the UK as the payment method for house purchases, although this represents about 1% of the daily value processed. By July 2011 the total value processed since the start of CHAPS exceeded one quadrillion (£1,000,000,000,000,000) pounds. £68 trillion was processed through the system in 2015.