Overview
It is the Bank of England’s job to keep the economy stable. And a key part of that is making sure you can make payments safely and reliably.Specialist firms run and manage the systems that allow you to transfer money and other financial assets digitally. Financial companies then connect to those systems and use them to provide services to their customers.
Our role in this is to run the behind-the-scenes settlement service, known as the real-time gross settlement service (RTGS) system, which holds accounts for banks, building societies and other institutions. The balances in these accounts can be used to move money in real time between the account holders, allowing them to settle what they owe each other from the payments systems in a final, risk-free way.
We also operate CHAPS, the UK’s high-value payments system.
We provide certain banking, wholesale payment and custodial services to the Government, overseas central banks, and selected financial sector firms – such as central counterparties – to support monetary and financial stability.
The Bank is also working with HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Payment System Regulator, as well the wider industry, to deliver the National Payments Vision. We are exploring a major upgrade of the UK’s core retail payment systems, which will give you more choice in how you pay for things every day.