On May 12, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released its final report, Extending and aligning payment system operating hours for cross-border payments.
Cross-border payments are subject to many challenges, including high costs, low speed, limited access and insufficient transparency. To enhance the payments market, the report focused on extending and aligning payment system operating hours, particularly of real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems. This could speed up cross-border payments, improve liquidity management, reduce settlement risk, among other benefits.
The report assesses three potential scenarios for extending RTGS system operating hours:
increase in operating hours on current operating days
increase to include current non-operating days
extension to 24-hour and seven-day-a-week (24/7)
This report focuses on RTGS systems that settle in central bank money as key payment systems for cross-border payments as well as other payment systems and critical services relevant for cross-border payments (retail payments and remittances).