Wire transfer service temporarily crashes

The Federal Reserve’s backend payment system that banks, government entities and investors rely on to transfer cash temporarily went dark on Wednesday.

The Fed blamed an “operational error” for FedWire’s collapse. FedWire services went down starting at around 11:40 a.m. and were restored by 2:25 p.m., according to the central bank.

FedWire is the central bank’s real-time wire-transfer service that is used to send large sums of cash between banks, federal and state governments as well as banks that need to clear funds.

Trillions of dollars move through the FedWire infrastructure each day.