Chaps provides a guaranteed same-day service for the bank-to-bank transmission of sterling-denominated payments. Although it is mainly used for high-value interbank and business-to-business payments, many UK consumers will have used it when buying or selling a high-value item, such as a house or car. It is one of the largest Real Time Gross Settlements (RTGS) systems in the world and its stability is critical to the UK's infrastructure.

Phil Kenworthy, Managing Director of Chaps Co comments: "Chaps is a key part of the UK's economic infrastructure which, in addition to supporting high value domestic payments, acts as the portal through which international wholesale Sterling payments flow. As such, we are delighted that State Street, as a major international Financial Institution, has now joined us as a full member. It will give them a direct say in how we develop this critical payment system in the coming years."

State Street is the first new member to join since Chaps changed its membership rules earlier this year. These changes were agreed with the Bank of England to actively encourage direct membership of Chaps: in particular amongst those indirect members of Chaps who process significant value. This move reduces intra-day financial risk within the wider Chaps eco-system.

In July 2012, Chaps handled a daily average of £296 billion. To put this in perspective, consumers only spent a total of £140 billion on credit cards in the UK in the whole of 2011.