The Clearing House Automated Payment System or CHAPS is a British company established in London in 1984, which offers same-day sterling and euro fund transfers. CHAPS is a member of the trade organisation APACS, and the EU-area settlement system TARGET.

A CHAPS transfer is initiated by the sender to move money to the recipient's account (at another banking institution) where the funds need to be available (cleared) the same working day. Unlike with a bank giro credit, no pre-printed slip specifying the recipient's details is required. Unlike cheques, the funds transfer is performed in real-time removing the issue of float or the potential for payments to be purposefully stopped by the sender, or returned due to insufficient funds, even after they appear to have arrived in the destination account.

CHAPS is used by 19 settlement banks including the Bank of England and over 400 sub member financial institutions. In its first year of operation, average daily transactions numbered 7,000 with a value of 5 billion pounds sterling. In 2004, twenty years later, average daily transactions numbered 130,000 with a value of 300 billion pounds sterling.^[1]

CHAPS transfers are relatively expensive, with banks typically charging as much as £30 for a transfer. The cost of fast transfers and the slow speed of free transfers (such as BACS) is sometimes a subject of controversy in the UK,^[2] although low value transactions are now available from CHAPS from its Faster Payments Service.^[3]

The Sterling members:^[4]

• Abbey
• ABN Amro Bank N.V
• Bank of England
• Bank of Scotland (HBOS)
• Barclays Bank Plc
• Citibank N.A
• Clydesdale Bank Plc
• Cls Bank International
• The Co-Operative Bank Plc
• Deutsche Bank A.G
• HSBC Bank Plc
• Lloyds TSB Bank Plc
• National Westminster Bank Plc
• The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc
• Standard Chartered Bank

The Euro members:^[4]

• Abbey
• ABN Amro Bank N.V
• Bank of America N.A
• Bank of England
• Bank of Scotland (HBOS)
• Barclays Bank Plc
• The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd
• Citibank N.A
• The Co-Operative Bank Plc
• Deutsche Bank A.G
• Dnb Nor Bank ASA
• HSBC Bank Plc
• Jp Morgan A.G
• Lloyds TSB Bank Plc
• National Australia Bank
• National Westminster Bank Plc
• The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc
• Standard Chartered Bank
• Wachovia Bank N.A

CHAPS clearing information relating to UK banks may be found in the Industry Sorting Code Directory.

[edit] See also

• Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)

[edit] External links

• CHAPS Clearing Company
• APACS - Bankers Drafts and Cheque Clearing, which has a section on CHAPS

[edit] References

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