Chaps Failure: Britons Buying or Selling A House Hit by BoE 'Technical Issue'

Britons buying or selling a house or making large payments via the Chaps system will be severely affected by the Bank of England's "technical issue" that has stopped funds being moved since 0600 BST on 20 October.

The UK's central bank said "it has identified the technical issue related to the routine maintenance of the real time gross settlement payment system and has paused settlement.

"The BoE is working to address the issue as soon as possible and the most important payment are being made manually. [We] can reassure the public that all payments made on Monday [20 October] that all payment will be process," it added.

The Clearing House Automated Payment System – more commonly known as CHAPS- is a UK payments scheme that processes and settles both systemically important and time-dependent payments in sterling.

Last year, over £70tn (€88tn, $113tn) was processed on the platform and, as of July 2011, the total value processed since the start of Chaps exceeded one quadrillion (£1,000,000,000,000,000) pounds.

People purchasing or selling a home usually use the system, via their conveyance solicitors, to transfer large amount of cash to sellers, the mortgage lenders and lawyers.