Global payments issue delaying house sales, Bank of England warns

Technical issues affecting a vital payment system has led to some house purchases being delayed, the Bank of England has warned.

The glitches are impacting the central bank’s Chaps system which processes about £360 billion worth of transactions a day.

It is used by high street banks, businesses, and individuals buying expensive items like a car or to pay a deposit on a house.

It is also commonly used by solicitors to complete house sales.

The Bank said a “global payments issue” was affecting the service and delaying some high value and time-sensitive payments, including some house purchases.

“We are mindful of the impact this is likely to have and are working closely with a third-party supplier, industry and other authorities to resolve the issue as promptly as possible,” it said in a statement.

“If you are concerned about a Chaps payment you plan to make or receive today, please contact your bank, or other payment service provider.

“Retail payment systems are unaffected so people and businesses can continue to use cash points, card payments and bank transfers as normal.”

Toby Leek, the president of Propertymark, said: “Completing on a property can be extremely stressful even without technical issues, however it is important to remember that should systems ever cause unexpected problems at a vital moment within the transactional process these issues do tend to be fixed quickly.

“The flipside is in the short term, this can have the potential to leave people waiting outside their new property with a removal van full of their belongings in very extreme cases.”

The Bank experienced similar outages in August last year, which stopped the system for about six hours.

Meanwhile, major high street banks were impacted by glitches affecting digital banking last month, leaving some customers temporarily unable to send and receive money.