The Clearing House
The Clearing House is a banking group owned by the largest U.S. banks. It runs essential payments systems in the United States through The Clearing House Payments Company, including ACH, large‑value wire transfers, check image clearing, electronic funds transfers, and a real‑time payments network called RTP. It also oversees The Clearing House Payments Authority and ECCHO, which set rules for private check image exchanges and provide education and lobbying.
Its member banks include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo.
The Clearing House Payments Company began in New York in 1853 to help banks settle transactions. It now has offices in New York and North Carolina. Over time, technology transformed payments, and the organization helped standardize and speed up settlements, moving away from gold-backed systems toward more modern certificates and electronic methods.
During financial panics in the 19th century, the Clearing House issued loan certificates to keep commerce moving when normal payments were disrupted. In 1913, the Federal Reserve was created to run a nationwide clearing system, and since then The Clearing House has focused on making sure payments between member banks clear smoothly, with settlements recorded through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Key systems launched include CHIPS in 1970 for large payments, NYACH (later the Electronics Payment Network, EPN) in 1975/2000, CHECCS for electronic check clearing in 1992, and RTP for instant payments in 2017. In 2004, the organization changed its name to The Clearing House Association, L.L.C.
The Clearing House has been involved in notable legal cases, including a 2009–2011 dispute over Federal Reserve data and a separate 2010–2011 case with New York State about fair lending rules.
Today, The Clearing House remains a private-sector payments operator owned by major banks, handling trillions of dollars in payments every day.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:06 (CET).