Bank of England: CHAPS to open from 1.30am as forum discusses longer settlement hours

On 4 November 2026 the Bank of England published a summary of the second meeting of the RTGS CHAPS Industry Forum, held on 13 October 2026. RTGS is the central bank's settlement system, and CHAPS is the payment system that runs on it. In the chair's absence, the meeting was chaired by the Bank's Head of Payment Delivery.

Longer settlement hours

The Bank gave an update on feedback from its recently closed consultation on further extending RTGS and CHAPS settlement hours. Respondents broadly supported the direction and the use cases, but differed on how to achieve it. Responses showed a preference for more weekday extensions before Sundays and bank holidays are added. The Bank has not yet reached conclusions on sequencing.

The work has three main drivers: innovation, improved cross-border payments, and liquidity and risk management. Members discussed issues to be resolved, including liquidity, optional participation, operating costs, incident management and planned downtime. They also debated whether to keep the existing value-date rollover (with CHAPS closing at 6pm) or align it more closely with the calendar day. The Bank acknowledged that more work is needed. It plans to publish its response to the consultation in early 2027.

The Bank confirmed that work on CHAPS opening from 1.30am is under way and progressing well. Initial estimates suggest around 20% of CHAPS payments by volume will settle before 6am.

Tokenisation and synchronisation

The Bank, HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority are working on tokenisation of assets. Feedback to their joint call for input showed that industry wants to move from pilots to live activity. A roadmap covering all the authorities is planned for the fourth quarter.

The Bank is also working on synchronisation functionality in RTGS. It would allow external asset ledgers to settle against sterling central bank money so that a transaction settles either in full or not at all. The Bank plans to publish information on how the service would work in early 2027. In November 2026 it plans a showcase event with prospective synchronisation operators.

Delayed standards and addresses

Swift delayed its 2026 standards release because of concerns about readiness for the removal of unstructured address fields. The Bank has therefore also delayed its November 2026 RTGS Standards Release. It is exploring whether the CHAPS rulebook could mandate structured addresses before the old fields are formally retired. Members supported exploring the idea further but said more engagement with industry would be needed. There was broad support for mandating structured debtor addresses. Members also noted dependence on improvements to the EISCD, the UK's sort-code directory.

Operational resilience

The forum discussed contingency settlement arrangements for when connectivity is unavailable, for example during a Swift outage. The current arrangements are small in scale and would cover only the most critical payments. Attendees noted that the Bank could also call a non-settlement day. The Bank will convene further discussions on short- and longer-term improvements. The next forum meeting is expected in January.