Payment and settlement statistics

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
CHAPS values (£mn)	£254,489	£284,591	£277,229	£268,615	£270,400	£298,710	£333,661	£330,095	£329,671	£361,844	£341,171	£394,572	£364,444	£344,409
CHAPS volumes	135,555	134,665	138,245	144,353	148,412	154,006	165,285	191,788	192,292	175,346	189,539	203,538	203,759	207,609
CREST DvP values (£mn)	£322,118	£293,293	£303,717	£274,257	£240,480	£220,970	£270,129	£314,193	£342,119	£382,440	£371,679	£374,307	£341,985	£391,715
CREST DvP volumes	6,859	7,325	8,388	9,050	9,391	10,883	12,063	12,099	11,760	12,750	13,154	13,947	12,598	13,041
FPS net values (£mn)	£188	£502	£586	£606	£663	£677	£775	£900	£1,026	£1,082	£1,388	£1,649	£1,805	£1,929
Bacs net values (£mn)	£3,269	£3,190	£3,071	£3,122	£3,159	£3,193	£3,321	£3,686	£3,915	£4,508	£4,611	£4,748	£5,068	£5,265
C&CC net values (£mn)	£220	£232	£211	£196	£190	£156	£137	£133	£161*	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Link net values (£mn)	£216	£235	£249	£271	£294	£315	£324	£318	£299	£213	£210	£226	£225	£241
Cheque imaging net values (£mn)									£193	£77	£65	£64	£56	£44
Visa Europe net values (£mn)	N/A	N/A	£1,144	£1,149	£1,425	£1,531	£1,776	£2,270	£2,363	£2,368	£2,481	£2,357	£2,222	£2,193
Mastercard values (£mn)											£519	£835	£1,389	£1,406
PEXA values (£mn)													£0	£0

• All data are daily averages of transactions settled within the RTGS system.
• CREST DvP activity in RTGS is measured by the debits applied to CREST settlement accounts at the end of each CREST settlement cycle, not the total volume or value of transactions in CREST itself.
• Retail payment system (FPS, Bacs, cheque-based Image Clearing System, LINK, Mastercard Europe, PEXA, Visa Europe) values represent the net value of each system’s settlement across RTGS. Net settlement for retail payment systems takes place within defined clearing cycles at specific points during the RTGS operating day. Therefore, no volumes data is available.
• Visa Europe began settling net obligations across RTGS in November 2013.
• Mastercard Europe began settling net obligations across RTGS in July 2021.
• PEXA began settling obligations across RTGS in September 2022.

RTGS settles individual payments in CHAPS, the same-day electronic funds transfer service for high-value sterling payments.

CHAPS direct participants can choose:

1. To settle payments immediately (subject to available liquidity) as ‘urgent’ CHAPS payments or

2. To accept some delay in settlement to improve liquidity efficiency and submit them as ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS payments.

The choice of which CHAPS settlement service to use is entirely at the discretion of the participant. Non-urgent settlement is usually available from 06:00 until 17:30, after which outstanding non-urgent payments are auto-promoted to urgent. Participants may choose to reschedule individual CHAPS payments from non-urgent to urgent, and vice versa, until the point of settlement. On average, non-urgent payments settle around eight minutes after submission into RTGS. The processes in the RTGS infrastructure to support these two CHAPS services are run in parallel and the availability of each is reported separately.

3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST

These functions are required to facilitate transfers of central bank money, arising from securities transactions between CREST participants, across the accounts held by CREST settlement banks at the Bank of England. This relies on technical links between the Bank’s RTGS infrastructure and the CREST infrastructure, operated by Euroclear. A period when CREST settlement is unavailable due to an incident with RTGS or the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST is recorded. However, CREST settlement can continue to operate even if RTGS is unavailable, by using contingency procedures.

4. Net interbank settlement of retail payment systems

Seven sterling retail payment systems (Bacs, cheque-based Image Clearing System, FPS, LINK, Mastercard Europe, PEXA and Visa Europe) settle their net obligations, arising from customer transactions, at defined points in time during the RTGS settlement day. A delay to the execution of these net settlements that results from an RTGS incident is recorded. RTGS does not provide the infrastructure for the exchange (or ‘clearing’) of individual payment instructions in these payment systems, so the availability of that system to its end-users is not dependent on RTGS availability.

5. RTGS Enquiry Link is the online graphical user interface (GUI) that holders of a reserves or settlement account use to manage their accounts. CHAPS participants also use this GUI for CHAPS payment queue management (the ‘central scheduler’). Any period where it is not available during the RTGS settlement day is recorded.

Until 17 June 2016, the CHAPS settlement day was 6am to 4.20pm.

RTGS service availability statistics

(a) On 26 January 2024, there was a 39 minute outage to RTGS which stopped CHAPS and CREST settlement.

(b) There were a series of short disruptions to the RTGS Enquiry Link on 15 March and 18 to 20 March 2024. In total this was for 1 hour and 16 minutes. During the disruption, external users were unable to login and use Enquiry Link.

(c) On 17 June 2024, there was a six minute settlement outage at 6am (including to CHAPS and CREST DvP settlement). Enquiry Link access was not impacted.

(d) On 18 July 2024, there was a 245 minute outage to CHAPS settlement between 10.57am and 3.02pm. The outage was due to an issue with Swift’s Y-Copy service which impacted the provision of this message service globally. CREST and retail net settlement were not impacted. CHAPS settlement was extended by around 90 minutes. All transactions submitted to the Bank were settled successfully. 

(e) On 31 July 2024, there was a 91 minute disruption to CHAPS settlement between 4.39pm and 6.10pm; a number of retail settlements were also delayed. The outage was due to an expired certificate within the Bank’s IT infrastructure. CHAPS settlement was extended by around an hour. All transactions submitted to the Bank were settled successfully. 

(f) On 30 September 2024, settlement of CHAPS payments was significantly slower than normal between 6am and 8.43am due to additional logging that had been put in place after CHAPS close on Friday 27 September not having been removed prior to Monday due to an issue with the process provided. There was a full CHAPS settlement outage from 8.43am to 8.53am to facilitate the process to switch the logging off. 

(g) On 14 October 2024, settlement of non-urgent CHAPS payments was unavailable for 32 minutes, between 5.08pm to 5.40pm. A series of brief connectivity issues, with a third-party network partner used to connect to Swift, impacted processing of a small number of messages. The absence of two acknowledgement messages temporarily prevented the initiation of new matching cycles which form part of the Liquidity Saving Mechanism used for non-urgent CHAPS settlement. 

(a) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 16 January. 

(b) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 9 and 11 May.

(c) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 6 June. 

(d) The Mastercard clearing was delayed by 21 minutes on 30 June due to technical issues at Mastercard.

(e) On 10 July, there was a 5 minute outage as a result of a technical SWIFT connectivity issue that impacted non-urgent CHAPS settlement.

(f) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 7 August.

(g) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 7 September.

(h) On 2 October, an EUI technical issue resulted in the DvP link between them and the Bank being unavailable for a total of 48 minutes.

(i) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 4 and 13 December.

(j) On 29 August 2023, there was a three-minute outage that impacted all RTGS settlement whilst the system automatically recovered from a component failure. The component in question automatically recovered as per its design.

(k) On 14 August 2023, a technical issue prevented the RTGS service opening on time, impacting all RTGS settlement. RTGS remained closed between 6am and 12.20pm. The service operated as normal thereafter and all payments submitted to the Bank for settlement on 14 August were settled before the end of the day.

(l) On 11 August 2023, Swift experienced an issue for all customers using their network via Alliance Connect. This resulted in Swift service unavailability of 11 minutes. This impacted CHAPS settlement, CREST DvP, interbank settlement of retail payment systems, and RTGS Enquiry Link.

Service availability	Jan 2022	Feb 2022	Mar 2022	Apr 2022	May 2022	Jun 2022	Jul 2022	Aug 2022	Sep 2022	Oct 2022	Nov 2022	Dec 2022
1. RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	99.93%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.96%(f)
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	99.93%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.96%(f)
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%(d)	100%	100%(e)	100%	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net interbank settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	33(b)	0	360(c)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

(a) On 6 January, there was a 10 minute outage as a result of a technical issue at SWIFT that impacted RTGS.

(b) The Mastercard clearing was delayed by 20 minutes on 14 March and 13 minutes on 15 March due to technical issues at Mastercard.

(c) On 18 May, planned testing with the Faster Payments System (FPS) failed for technical reasons. As a result, two FPS clearings were delayed, by 270 minutes and 90 minutes respectively.

(d) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on Friday 17 June (which required a Non Standard CREST Closure at the end of the day).

(e) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 30 August.

(f) On 8 December, there was a 6 minute outage as a result of a technical SWIFT connectivity issue that impacted CHAPS settlement.

Service availability	Jan 2021	Feb 2021	Mar 2021	Apr 2021	May 2021	Jun 2021	Jul 2021	Aug 2021	Sept 2021	Oct 2021	Nov 2021	Dec 2021
1. RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.97%(d)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	99.96%(a)	100%	100%	99.97%(d)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	98%(b)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net interbank settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	0	0	0	38(c)	0	161(e)	135(f)	32(g)	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

(a) On 12 April 2021, ’non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement was unavailable for 6 minutes from 6am to 6.06am, due to a system configuration error. Non-urgent CHAPS settlement resumed at 6.06am. Settlement of urgent CHAPS payments was unaffected. All other RTGS services were unaffected. 

(b) On 24 February 2021 a technical failure occurred on the link between the Bank of England and the CREST system at the start of the operational day. An established contingency procedure was invoked, enabling the Bank to provide start of day liquidity for CREST settlement. A reconciliation break on one of the accounts led to a further delay whilst the cause was identified and resolved, at which point CREST settlement resumed. CHAPS settlement was unaffected. 

(c) The Faster Payments System (FPS) clearing was delayed due to a technical issue which prevented the clearing message being sent to RTGS on time. Pay.UK’s (the operator of FPS) third party technology provider fixed the issue and the clearing settled at 17:43 (38 minutes late).

(d) On 20 July, following a connectivity issue on a network component hosted by a third party supplier of SWIFT, an RTGS matching cycle was interrupted requiring manual intervention to re-start it. This ultimately delayed CHAPS settlement by 5 minutes.

(e) The MasterCard clearing was delayed by a total of 34 minutes on 11th August due to a delayed settlement file transfer via SWIFT. They also encountered an additional 6 minute delay on 23rd August for which the root cause is being investigated. Additionally, ICS scheme clearing was delayed by 121 minutes on 19th August due to disruptions in access portal connectivity, which impacted message file submissions to them and the subsequent sending of the clearing to the BoE.

(f) On 8 September, there was a delay of 45 minutes to the first Faster Payments Service (FPS) settlement cycle. This was due to a FPS participant having insufficient funds in their settlement account. On 9 September, there was a 90 minute delay to LINK settlement, which was due to a technical issue at Vocalink and meant that the settlement required manual completion.

(g) The Mastercard clearing was delayed by a total of 32 minutes on 26 October which was due to a technical issue at Mastercard.

Service availability	Jan 2020	Feb 2020	Mar 2020	Apr 2020	May 2020	Jun 2020	Jul 2020	Aug 2020	Sept 2020	Oct 2020	Nov 2020	Dec 2020
1. RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.80%(a)	100%	99.94%(b)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.79%(a)	100%	99.94%(b)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	99.57%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%(f)	100%	100%(g)	100%
4. Delays to net settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	0	0	0	0	150(c)	0	0	0	0	151(h)
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%(d)	100%	100%	100%	100%(e)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

(a) On 14 May 2020 the failure of a network component at one of SWIFT’s European processing centres meant the loss of its messaging services within that zone. As a consequence, the Bank lost connectivity to the external SWIFT messaging service that supports CHAPS. SWIFT restored services by performing a failover to their alternative processing centre, but CHAPS urgent and non-urgent settlement was not available for 28 minutes while this was completed. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension.

(b) On 6 July 2020, the Bank experienced a 10 minute RTGS settlement delay. As a consequence of a SWIFT outage earlier in the day, there was an issue with our internal SWIFT infrastructure that led to a 10 minute outage of settlement while it was reset. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension.

(c) On 22 July 2020, we undertook a contingency test with Link, requiring manual settlement of the clearing instruction. During the test there was a delay, but settlement was completed by 1.30pm. All other RTGS services were unaffected.

(d) Enquiry Link was available, but some users experienced intermittent access on Monday 20 January between 06:00 and 07:56 due to a technical problem.

(e) Enquiry Link was available but some users experienced intermittent access on both 13 and 22 May due to a technical problem.

(f) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on Friday 11 September (which required a Non Standard CREST Closure at the end of the day) and Monday 14 September. 

(g) Whilst the RTGS-CREST link was available, CREST itself experienced technical issues on 6 and 10 November.

(h) The Image Clearing System (ICS) clearing was delayed due to an issue with the ICS system which impacted the ICS participants’ ability to confirm the payments. Pay.UK fixed the issue and the clearing settled at 19.01 (2 hours 31 minutes late).

Service availability	Jan 2019	Feb 2019	Mar 2019	Apr 2019	May 2019	Jun 2019	Jul 2019	Aug 2019	Sept 2019	Oct 2019	Nov 2019	Dec 2019
1. RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	99.50%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.93%(b)
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	99.48%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.93%(b)
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	13	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

(a) On 20 March 2019 at 3.28pm there was a controlled stop of CHAPS settlement in the Real Time Gross Settlement service that resulted in transactions being suspended until 4.43pm when settlement was restarted following internal investigations. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension.

(b) On 4 December 2019 at 11am there was an internal issue which paused RTGS settlement for 10 minutes. Settlement was restarted following internal investigations. All settlement obligations were settled during the standard settlement day, without needing an extension. CREST settlement was unaffected.

 

Service availability	Jan 2018	Feb 2018	Mar 2018	Apr 2018	May 2018	Jun 2018	Jul 2018	Aug 2018	Sept 2018	Oct 2018	Nov 2018	Dec 2018
1. RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	99.88%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	99.87%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%;	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

(a) On 19 February 2018, CHAPS settlement was unavailable for 18 minutes from 6am to 6.18am due to a minor operational issue that required manual intervention. Urgent settlement is usually available from 6am to 6pm, non-urgent is usually available from 6am to 5.30pm. CREST and other settlements were unaffected.

Service availability	Jan 2017	Feb 2017	Mar 2017	Apr 2017	May 2017	Jun 2017	Jul 2017	Aug 2017	Sept 2017	Oct 2017	Nov 2017	Dec 2017
1. RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	99.76%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	99.64%(a)	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.92%(c)	100%	100%	100%	100%
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.67%(b)	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

(a) On 13 March 2017, infrastructure for urgent CHAPS settlement and non-urgent CHAPS settlement was unavailable from 2.30pm, due to a SWIFT network issue. Urgent settlement was resumed after 40 minutes at 3.10pm. Non-urgent settlement was resumed after 60 minutes at 3.30pm. All other services were unaffected.

(b) On 5 June 2017, the RTGS Enquiry Link was unavailable for external users for 61 minutes, between 5.05am and 6.06am due to a minor internal issue. CHAPS payment processing and CREST settlement were unaffected.

(c) On 4 August 2017, ’non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement was unavailable for 12 minutes from 6.07am to 6.19am, due to a minor issue with some of the Bank’s connections to the SWIFT network. Non-urgent CHAPS settlement resumed at 6.19am. Settlement of urgent CHAPS payments was unaffected. All other RTGS services were unaffected.

 

Service availability	Jan 2016	Feb 2016	Mar 2016	Apr 2016	May 2016	Jun 2016	Jul 2016	Aug 2016	Sept 2016	Oct 2016	Nov 2016	Dec 2016
1.RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	100%	99.89%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100

Service availability	Jan 2015	Feb 2015	Mar 2015	Apr 2015	May 2015	Jun 2015	Jul 2015	Aug 2015	Sept 2015	Oct 2015	Nov 2015	Dec 2015
1.RTGS infrastructure for ‘urgent’ CHAPS settlement	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
2. RTGS infrastructure for ‘non-urgent’ CHAPS settlement	99.60%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
3. Ability of RTGS and the RTGS-CREST link to support settlement in CREST	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.58%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
4. Delays to net settlement of retail payment systems (minutes)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5. RTGS Enquiry Link	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	99.64