CHAPS Integration

6B are trusted integration partners for financial institutions, providing full-lifecycle CHAPS connectivity through modern APIs, secure file-based transfers, and messaging standards used by UK settlement systems. From initial design and regulatory alignment through to development, testing, and operational support, we ensure your system integrates smoothly and safely into the CHAPS payment infrastructure.

As a dedicated financial engineering partner, our mission is to help organisations modernise their payment processes, reduce operational risk, and meet the stringent security expectations required for high-value settlement.

Understanding CHAPS Integration

CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System) is a same-day, high-value payment scheme used widely across the UK by banks, corporates, insurers, lenders, and investment platforms. CHAPS supports time-critical, irrevocable payments such as treasury movements, property transactions, large-scale settlements, and corporate disbursements. As one of the country’s real-time gross settlement (RTGS) mechanisms, it requires strict compliance with Bank of England rules, secure communication protocols, and robust operational controls.

CHAPS integration typically involves connecting internal finance, treasury, or transactional systems to the settlement process through secure APIs or message-based channels that follow ISO 20022 standards. Organisations may integrate directly with their sponsoring bank or through a managed payments provider, depending on their regulatory status and operational structure. Effective integration ensures that payments, acknowledgements, status updates, and exceptions flow seamlessly between internal systems and the CHAPS ecosystem.

To ensure compliance and operational resilience, CHAPS requires strong authentication, detailed audit logging, encryption, and strict validation of payment instructions before submission. A well-designed integration supports both real-time processing and automated reconciliation, enabling financial platforms to execute high-value transactions with confidence, accuracy, and transparency.

Our CHAPS Integration Process

Our CHAPS integration process begins with a collaborative discovery phase, where we work closely with your operational, compliance, and technical teams to identify your payment workflows and determine how your organisation interacts with the CHAPS settlement process. We establish whether your integration will be direct via your sponsoring bank, facilitated through a payments provider, or embedded within broader treasury or corporate finance systems. This initial stage clarifies core requirements such as authentication models, ISO 20022 message structures, data security considerations, and exception-handling workflows.

Once requirements are defined, our architects design a secure integration architecture that aligns with your internal systems and the CHAPS communication model. We incorporate encryption, signing, certificate management, message validation, and reconciliation mechanisms to ensure payments are transmitted accurately and safely. Our reusable component library – including validation engines, ISO 20022 message handlers, and secure connection modules – helps accelerate development while maintaining the highest standards of reliability and compliance.

During development and testing, we validate each element of the integration: payment message creation, structural and schema validation, secure submission, response handling, error scenarios, and full end-to-end workflow simulation. We support coordination with banks or payment service providers during test phases, ensuring your solution meets their technical and operational requirements. Once live, we implement monitoring, audit trails, and alerting workflows to ensure stable, compliant, and transparent operation.

After deployment, we provide ongoing maintenance to keep your integration aligned with Bank of England updates, ISO 20022 changes, and evolving financial regulatory expectations. This ensures your CHAPS connectivity remains reliable, secure, and fully aligned with industry standards.

Benefits of CHAPS Integration

Integrating your systems with CHAPS supports faster, more reliable, and more secure high-value payments, enabling organisations to manage time-critical transactions with greater confidence and efficiency. Real-time processing significantly reduces settlement delays, allowing treasury teams, financial platforms, and corporate finance operations to move funds with full visibility and minimal risk. Automated workflows reduce manual handling and administrative overhead, improving the accuracy and consistency of high-value payment execution.

CHAPS integration also enhances compliance by enforcing structured validation, robust authentication, and complete audit trails across the payment lifecycle. This reduces the likelihood of rejected payments, operational errors, or compliance gaps, particularly in high-stakes financial environments. For organisations that rely on fast or guaranteed settlement — such as lenders, brokers, and commercial real estate providers — CHAPS provides a dependable mechanism that supports secure, irrevocable transfers.

From an operational standpoint, integrated exception handling and automated reconciliation improve financial accuracy and provide transparency for internal teams. This enables faster reporting, reduces reconciliation bottlenecks, and strengthens risk management. As organisations scale, a modern CHAPS integration provides the performance, security, and resilience needed to support increased transaction volumes and more complex financial workflows.