CHAPS Settlement Hours Are Getting Longer: What It Means For Payments Firms' Reconciliations

CHAPS settlement hours decide when high-value sterling payments can settle in central bank money. The Bank of England is extending them, starting with an earlier opening, and it set out progress in a forum summary published on 4 November 2026. This applies to the UK payments system and to every firm that sends or receives CHAPS payments.

What did the Bank of England say?

• **Earlier opening.** Work on implementing CHAPS opening from 1.30am is already under way, and initial estimates suggest around 20% of CHAPS payments by volume will settle before 6am.
• **Further extensions.** Respondents to the consultation on further extended hours broadly supported the direction, with a preference for more weekday hours before adding Sundays and bank holidays. The Bank plans to publish its response in early 2027.
• **Synchronisation.** The Bank is working on synchronisation in RTGS, which would let external asset ledgers settle against sterling central bank money only if every part of a transaction settles together. A showcase is planned for November 2026.
• **Contingency.** Members discussed how to process payments during a Swift outage, and highlighted the limits of manual processing and the benefits of automation.

What do longer CHAPS settlement hours mean for payments firms?

If a fifth of CHAPS payments by volume settle before 6am, the morning reconciliation starts with more activity already on the books. Forum members also discussed whether the value-date rollover should stay with CHAPS closing at 6pm or move closer to the calendar day, and the Bank said more work is needed. Either way, reconciliations and safeguarding checks timed around the old day will need a look.

Source for the changes: Bank of England, 4 November 2026. The checks are illustrative.

Change	Status in the 4 November summary	What to check
CHAPS opening from 1.30am	Implementation under way	Which reconciliations assume nothing settles before 6am
Further extended hours	Response planned for early 2027	Staffing and cut-off times for weekday evenings
Value-date rollover	More work needed	How your ledger dates late payments
Swift outage contingency	Further discussions planned	Your own fallback for critical payments

What else did the forum cover?

On contingency, attendees noted that arrangements during a Swift outage would be small in scale and cover only the most critical payments, and that the Bank could call a non-settlement day in the event of disruption. The Bank will convene further discussions on both short and longer-term arrangements.

On tokenisation, the Bank said feedback to its joint call for input with the FCA showed industry wants to move from pilots towards live activity. A cross-authority roadmap is planned for the fourth quarter, covering digital asset issuance, collateral use and settlement in central bank money. The next forum meeting is expected in January.

How can reconciliation automation keep up?

Reconciliations that run when the data arrives, not when the team arrives, are the practical answer. Our safeguarding reconciliations workflow pulls balances from bank statements and your ledger, runs the reconciliation and writes up each difference, and a person approves the result before anything is recorded. Our article on tokenised collateral covers the Bank's wider tokenisation work, and structured address data covers another change from the same forum.

Where should a payments firm start?

Map which of your checks assume the current settlement day and how long each takes. As a Workflow Automation Agency we can show what an early-morning reconciliation looks like on your data in a 14-day Proof Run. This article summarises a Bank of England publication and is not advice.