CHAPS

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 preprinted 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.

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, although low value transactions are now available from CHAPS from its Faster Payments Service

The Sterling members:

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:

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