Bank of England plans Sunday settlements in push towards 24/7 payments

May 18 (Reuters) - The Bank of England ​said on ⁠Monday it plans to extend the ​operating hours of Britain's payments infrastructure systems to include Sundays and some bank holidays in ​the ‌coming years, in a step towards a long-term goal of near 24/7 settlements.

The BoE ⁠said settlement hours for the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) ⁠and high-value CHAPS systems ​would run initially from 1:30 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sundays and holidays excluding Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Easter Sunday.

Those changes would not take place ​before 2029 ‌and longer hours would not be introduced until 2031.

"Our view is that settlement at weekends and bank holidays offers greater risk reduction benefits as well as having greater potential to support innovation in payments and ​other financial services and should therefore be prioritised," the BoE said in a consultation ‌paper.

The moves are intended to keep Britain's payment systems up to date with the latest technologies, so ‌it can handle newer forms of money such as tokenised deposits and stablecoins.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is also moving towards weekend settlement, the BoE noted.

The ​BoE announced plans in February to bring forward the operating window for CHAPS to ‌1:30 a.m. from 6:00 a.m. Monday to Friday from September 2027 onwards.

The plans to add Sunday and bank holiday settlements, followed by the extension to ⁠the operating ⁠hours on those days, will result in "22x6" operation - ‌meaning CHAPS settling for 22 hours a day, Sunday through Friday, with a short daily break ​for maintenance.

Participants would ​be able to undertake liquidity transfers across their own ‌accounts on Saturdays.

For the next step, the BoE said it would seek views on whether it should move to a 22x7 or 23.5x7-hours plan. (Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by William Schomberg)