On 24 February 2026, the Bank of England (BoE) issued a policy statement setting out its decision to extend CHAPS settlement hours by moving the start of settlement from 06:00 to 01:30.

The policy statement follows an earlier consultation that the BoE issued last summer on extending settlement hours, to which the policy statement serves as a formal response.

The policy statement should be read by all participants in the UK payments ecosystem, including current and future CHAPS direct participants (CHAPS DPs), other RTGS account holders, financial market infrastructures, indirect CHAPS participants and other stakeholders including trade associations.

Key outcomes

The BoE will proceed with the extension of CHAPS settlement hours, enabling settlement from 01:30 under an optional participation model, with go-live targeted for September 2027, subject to final confirmation of the planned timelines with impacted CHAPS DPs.

The BoE will not make any changes to the evening contingency window given limited demand. Consideration of a longer weekday operating window will be incorporated into the longer-term roadmap towards near 24×7 settlement.

As for additional bank holiday settlement, the BoE will explore a refined proposal alongside the relevant external stakeholders to assess the demand, benefits and feasibility of enabling both CHAPS and net settlement on certain bank holiday Mondays.

The immediate impact of the early morning extension (EME) is:

  • Sending payments: CHAPS DPs will have the option to send payments in the EME from 01:30. Those that choose to send during the EME may need to implement additional operational changes compared to those only receiving payments.
  • Receiving payments: All CHAPS DPs will receive payments on their account used for CHAPS settlement in RTGS from 01:30, regardless of whether they actively send payments during this period. Each CHAPS DP should assess any consequential impact on their operations.
  • Crediting funds: Each CHAPS DP can decide whether to process received payments into its internal systems immediately including when to credit funds to their own and end-users’ accounts (customer or internal accounts) subject to applicable legislation such as the Payment Services Regulations.

The expected impact of the EME is further discussed in chapter 4 of the policy statement.

Other payment system settlement

The policy statement does not extend to any other payment system settlement between 01:30 and 06:00. Payment systems operated by other payment system operators, such as Pay.UK (Bacs, Faster Payments and cheque imaging), Visa, Mastercard, LINK, PEXA and Euroclear UK & International (CREST), would continue to operate on their existing timelines. The BoE will, however, continue to work with payment system operators to understand demand for additional settlement.

Next steps

As mentioned above, the BoE intends to put this EME in place in September 2027, subject to final confirmation of the planned timelines with impacted CHAPS DPs.

To support smooth implementation and reinforce market confidence and operational resilience, the BoE will share further information with CHAPS DPs in due course. This will provide greater clarity on:

  • Incident management: How settlement‑impacting incidents will be handled during the EME window, including escalation routes, expectations for CHAPS DP communication, and boundaries between critical and non‑critical issues.
  • Regulatory reporting: How existing obligations to report incidents to regulators (the BoE, Prudential Regulation Authority, Financial Conduct Authority) apply during the extended window.
  • Roles and responsibilities: The respective responsibilities of the BoE, as the operator of RTGS/CHAPS, and CHAPS DPs during the early morning extension window. This includes expectations for operational readiness and a proportionate approach to co-ordination of early morning extension activity.

Whilst the policy statement addresses the EME, work on the other extension phases – including bank holiday settlement and the wider roadmap towards near 24×7 settlement – will continue, with further updates provided as this work develops. Based on the feedback so far received the BoE will not progress the proposal for an extension to the evening contingency window at this stage.