FIN.

BoE publish the RTGS and CHAPS Annual Report

The Annual Report published on 1 August 2019 sets out the BoE’s strategy on the subjects of RTGS and CHAPS for the year 2019/20.

The report notes that they have a target of 99.95% operational availability for RTGS and CHAPS.  In order to achieve this the BoE sets out plans to help them achieve their strategy:

Safe and Resilient – the BoE will continue to take a pro-active approach to cyber risk and allocate responsibility for mitigating it.  They also plan to (1) implement an enhanced cyber security strategy, (2) strengthen security section of the the CHAPS reference manual, (3) feature cyber risk management in the renewed RTGS and (4) assess the potential use of Pay.UK’s retail systems as contingency fo each other.

Well Run – the BoE will continue to ensure that RTGS and CHAPS will undergo continuous improvement and will ensure that value for money can be demonstrated.  They will be considering their role in helping combat retail fraud through CHAPS including in respect of confirmation of payee and in respect of wholesale payments fraud.

Responsive – the BoE is planning to continue its programme of engagement with external stakeholders through a number of means including roundtables e.g on the implementation of ISO 20022 in the UK.

Integrated – the BoE will continue to bring CHAPS activity into their wider workload including cyber and prudential supervision work through the embedding of two way information sharing and coordination.  They will also focus on post-incident management processes and analysis of incidents.

Renewed – the BoE will need to ensure that the new RTGS service can respond to the changing structure of the financial system better.

The report closes by setting out availability statistics for both RTGS (100% over Mar 19 to Feb 19) and the volume of CHAPS over the same period.

Emma Radmore