Operational and technical considerations for extending and aligning payment system operating hours for cross-border payments: An analytical framework

An extension and alignment of payment system operating hours across jurisdictions could help to speed up cross-border payments, especially between jurisdictions with significant time zone differences. It could also improve liquidity management, reduce settlement risk and enhance the performance of cross-border payment arrangements.

Central banks and operators or real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems could consider three options (or "end states") for extending and aligning operating hours. These options range from an incremental increase in operating hours on current operating days, an extension to include current non-operating days and an expansion to full 24-hour and seven-day-a-week operations.

This technical report presents a systematic three-step approach building on the CPMI report "Extending and aligning payment system operating hours for cross-border payments". It proposes an analytical framework for central banks and RTGS system operators to help determine the most appropriate approach to extending operating hours, evaluating related technical and operational issues and designing an implementation plan. It focuses on approaches to increasing operating hours on current operating days as the most achievable option in the short term, while considering the other end states as part of a medium to long-term strategy.