Bank of England confirms CHAPS will open at 01:30 under an optional early morning extension targeted for September 2027

The Bank of England has issued a policy statement confirming it will extend CHAPS settlement hours by moving the start of settlement from 06:00 to 01:30 as the first phase of its RTGS and CHAPS settlement-hours programme. The early morning extension is planned to go live in September 2027, subject to final confirmation of the timelines with impacted CHAPS direct participants, and will allow direct participants to choose whether to send payments during the additional window. All CHAPS direct participants will receive payments into their CHAPS settlement account in RTGS from 01:30 regardless of whether they opt to send during the extension, and each firm can decide when to process and credit incoming funds subject to applicable legislation. Forward-dated payments submitted without a specific settlement time will settle immediately once CHAPS opens at 01:30 (assuming sufficient funds). The Bank will not progress changes to the evening contingency window at this stage, and other payment systems’ settlement between 01:30 and 06:00 will remain on existing timelines. Operational arrangements include an “alert and respond” support model for 01:30–06:00, intraday liquidity credits in RT2 at 01:30 (with amendments still not permitted before 08:00), no change to the euro liquidity bridge start time of 05:50, and a shift in Notes Circulation Scheme settlement from 05:15 to 01:15. Next steps include a Bank-led readiness workstream and further implementation detail for CHAPS direct participants, including guidance on incident management, regulatory reporting expectations during the extended window, and roles and responsibilities. The Bank will also continue work on a refined proposal for enabling both CHAPS and net settlement on certain bank holiday Mondays, and it aims to publish a further consultation paper in Spring 2026 on extending settlement hours towards near 24x7 operation.