Groundwork for near-24/7 payments settlement in place

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is laying the groundwork for a near-24/7 payment settlement system as cross-border transactions accelerate, aiming to keep pace with global trends and ease operational constraints.

The central bank is soliciting feedback from banks and other industry participants on a discussion paper that outlines a plan to extend the operating hours of the local real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system. Stakeholders have until Jan. 16 to submit comments.

The paper lays out the forces driving the proposal, the expected benefits and the risks of round-the-clock operations. It also sketches potential use cases that could benefit payment system participants and the broader economy.

An RTGS platform enables the instant settlement of payments, transfer instructions and other obligations on a transaction-by-transaction basis—a critical backbone of modern financial systems.

At present, the country’s RTGS network, known as PhilPaSSplus, is owned and operated by the BSP and runs only from 9 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. on weekdays.

Under the proposal, “near 24/7” means operating seven days a week for 22 hours a day, with a two-hour window reserved for system maintenance and testing. The downtime will be in line with globally accepted standards and with recent episodes of unavailability in PhilPaSSplus.

The BSP said the current operating hours of PhilPaSSplus leave gaps in coverage with major international markets, constraining efficient cross-border settlements and complicating liquidity management across time zones.

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At home, the limited window also affects ancillary payment systems, such as InstaPay, PESONet and ATM networks, which rely on PhilPaSSplus for final settlement. Because these retail systems operate beyond the RTGS cut-off, settlement is pushed to the next business day, potentially creating overnight liquidity exposures.

By expanding availability from 43.75 hours a week—8.75 hours a day, five days a week —to 154 hours a week, the BSP said PhilPaSSplus would far exceed the moderate operating range of 56 to 112 hours weekly.

The increase will put the system well above the operating hours of platforms in Europe and the Middle East.