CHIPS announces new communications options for improved business continuity

CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payment System) announced yesterday that it will begin accepting large value payment transactions via SWIFTNet in addition to accepting them over its private TCP/IP Network. CHIPS customers will benefit from communications flexibility and efficiency, while the entire industry will benefit from improved resiliency of the global payments infrastructure.

"It is a major milestone in improving and standardising the international, large value payments infrastructure," said Don Monks, senior executive vice president of The Bank of New York. "Having both options available raises the bar in the area of business continuity and resiliency for all payment systems."

CHIPS and SWIFT are major, bank-owned components of the global payments infrastructure. CHIPS processes $1.3 trillion per day in US dollar transactions internationally and in the US domestic market. Today CHIPS uses an X.25 standard and later this year will be moving to a TCP/IP protocol as well as offering the SWIFTNet option. SWIFT supplies secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,500 financial institutions in 200 countries and offers TCP/IP communications connectivity through SWIFTNet.

CHIPS customers will have the flexibility to connect to CHIPS and other payment systems managed by The Clearing House over standard connections provided by either The Clearing House or by SWIFT. In fact, customers can use these options to access every major payment system in the world. The enhanced diversity also gives customers the advantage of higher reliability and resilience. The improved connectivity options will be available for new and existing CHIPS customers by the end of this year.

www.chips.org

•Date: 26th February 2004 •Region: N.America •Type: Article •Topic: Financial sector
Rate this article or make a comment - click here