UK eyes Sunday CHAPS settlement in push for near 24/7 payments

The Bank of England has set out a phased plan to move CHAPS and the underlying RTGS system toward near 24/7 operation, with Sunday and bank holiday settlement targeted for no earlier than 2029 and a 22-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week model by 2031. The consultation is the clearest signal yet that sterling wholesale settlement is being rebuilt around always-on payments, tokenised assets and stablecoins, with the primary keyword for finance professionals being CHAPS settlement hours extension. Industry responses are due by 10 August 2026.

CHAPS, the UK's high-value payment system, currently settles only 12 hours a day, Monday to Friday. From September 2027, the window opens at 01:30 instead of 06:00, taking it to 16.5 hours on weekdays. The new consultation now sets out what comes next.

What is the Bank actually proposing?

The Bank wants industry input on two next steps and the order in which to take them.

The first step is adding a weekend settlement day, most likely Sunday, alongside settlement on selected UK bank holidays, from no earlier than 2029. Initial hours would mirror weekdays at 01:30 to 18:00. Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Easter Sunday remain closed. Bank holidays proposed for inclusion are Good Friday, Easter Monday, both May bank holidays, the August bank holiday, Boxing Day and any ad hoc public holidays.

The second step, from no earlier than 2031, is extending weekday and weekend opening to 22 hours, producing a "22x6" model. Under that target, CHAPS would settle for roughly 80% of every week, with Saturday reserved for system maintenance, contingency rehearsals and internal liquidity transfers between participants' own accounts.

For the longer term, the Bank is asking industry to choose between two end-states: 22x7 (a two-hour daily downtime window every day) or 23.5x7 (a 30-minute daily window). The latter would maximise overlap with always-on rails and tokenisation use cases but compresses change management to a degree the Bank itself flags as the highest-risk, highest-cost option.

Why is the Bank of England doing this now?

Three drivers anchor the case. The first is innovation. The Bank's renewed RTGS platform, RT2, went live in April 2025 and is engineered to support near 24/7 operation. In May 2026, the Bank launched a Synchronisation Lab with 18 selected organisations, exploring conditional settlement of central bank money against assets on external ledgers, including DLT, for use cases such as tokenised securities, cross-border FX payment-versus-payment and collateral optimisation. Without extended hours, those use cases stall at the door of central bank money.

The second is cross-border payments, a G20 priority. The Bank cites FXC Intelligence data putting the global cross-border payments market at $194.6 trillion in 2024, with a forecast of $320 trillion by 2032. Aligning RTGS hours expands the "global settlement window," the period during which the largest number of RTGS systems run simultaneously, reducing prefunding costs and settlement risk in correspondent chains.

The third is liquidity and risk reduction. Net settlement systems including Bacs and Faster Payments currently accrue obligations across the longest closure period of the week, the weekend. Over an Easter weekend, the gap between RTGS settlements stretches from Thursday evening to Tuesday morning. Sunday settlement directly attacks that exposure.

How does this compare with other central banks?

The UK is not moving in isolation. The Federal Reserve confirmed in October 2025 that Fedwire Funds Service and the National Settlement Service will expand to Sunday and weekday holiday operation, no earlier than 2028, at 22 hours per day, building toward a possible 22x7x365 end-state. The European Central Bank already runs T2 from 02:30 to 18:00 on weekdays. The Swiss National Bank and the Reserve Bank of Australia operate at the longer-hours end of the spectrum, while India, Switzerland, New Zealand and Sweden (for retail) already run 24/7 for certain payment types. The UK's 2031 timeline lands the country slightly behind the US on weekend operation but in step with the broader direction of travel.

What does this mean for banks and CHAPS direct participants?

The operational implications are substantial. The Bank's preferred value-date model, aligning with peers including the ECB, the Swiss National Bank and the Fed, is to close settlement at 18:00 and reopen for the next value date at 20:00 on the same calendar day. That creates a 20:00 to 00:00 window where calendar day and value date diverge, with knock-on effects for interest accrual, customer reporting, the SONIA benchmark and consistency with the Payment Services Regulations. The Bank is working with the Financial Conduct Authority on legal alignment.

Liquidity provision is the second pressure point. CHAPS direct participants currently fund settlement through cash buffers, market borrowing or Bank facilities including Intraday Liquidity and the Sterling Monetary Framework. Weekend and overnight settlement happens when wholesale money markets and securities settlement systems are typically shut, raising questions about collateral mobility and the PRA's intraday liquidity framework, including PRA110 reporting, which currently assumes no weekend outflows.

Participation is proposed to remain optional outside core hours of 06:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday, with the Bank seeking views on whether the same flexibility should apply at weekends. Throughput rules for daily payment volume targets remain unchanged. Existing alert-and-respond operational support, agreed for the 01:30 early-morning extension, may extend to quieter periods of an extended day, but the Bank's initial assessment is that full weekend support cover would be required for any Sunday operation.

Resolution risk is the most consequential financial-stability question raised in the paper. Authorities have historically used weekend market closures to stabilise distressed firms. Sterling outflows at materially greater values on Sundays would compress that window, a point the Bank explicitly flags for industry feedback.

Why this matters to FinanceX readers

For finance professionals, this consultation is the timeline-setting document for sterling wholesale infrastructure for the rest of the decade. By 2031, treasury operations, intraday liquidity models, prudential reporting templates and weekend staffing rotas will need to be rebuilt. Payment system operators including Bacs, Faster Payments and CHAPS direct participants face concrete investment decisions now, not in 2029.

For investors and counterparties in tokenisation, stablecoins and cross-border FX, the move signals that UK central bank money will eventually be reachable outside business hours, the precondition for credible scale in those markets. The 10 August 2026 deadline is the window to shape that path.