The Clearing House Says Processing Error Impacted Less Than 1% of Daily ACH

The Clearing House has reportedly said that it is not aware of any ongoing issues after a narrow processing error that affected deposits and transfers at some banks.

Bank of America had sent a memo to clients Friday (Nov. 3) saying that some of their deposits may be delayed due to an issue that was affecting multiple financial institutions, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Similarly, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase & Co. told the media outlet that a system issue had affected ACH debits and credits sent to the bank and other lenders.

Other banks that experienced deposit delays due to the processing issue include US Bank, Truist and Wells Fargo, CNN reported Friday. There were also complaints on social media from people who hadn’t been paid because of the problem.

The issue affected a single file, and therefore a batch of payments, and was ultimately a narrow processing issue caused by human error, a spokesperson for The Clearing House told Bloomberg.

Reached by PYMNTS, a spokesperson for The Clearing House said in an email: “The Clearing House (TCH) experienced an ACH processing issue which impacted less than 1% of the daily ACH volume in the United States. TCH is working with the financial institutions who have customers that have been impacted.”

The Federal Reserve said the processing issue happened at EPN, the automated clearing house owned by The Clearing House, and said all of its financial services were operating normally, the Bloomberg report said.

“On November 3, 2023, a processing issue at EPN, the private sector ACH operator, resulted in a number of ACH entries having certain data elements obscured (file dated for November 1, 2023, processed on November 2, 2023, with effective dates from November 2-3),” the Federal Reserve said in an alert issued Friday. “This error was contained in a single interoperator file that was distributed by EPN to its participants during the November 2 6:00 p.m. processing window. These entries contain valid Nacha syntax, but obscured account information and recipient information.”

The alert added that EPN had informed the Federal Reserve that these items could not be processed by the receiving depository financial institutions because of the obscured data, that EPN instructed its participants to initiate returns and that originating depository financial institutions will need to be ready to initiate new items to complete the payments.

In its Friday memo to clients, Bank of America said, per the Bloomberg report: “Your accounts remain secure, and your balance will be updated as soon as the deposit is received.”