As the Bank of England modernises CHAPS and RTGS infrastructure, payment firms are placing greater focus on settlement speed, liquidity visibility and operational resilience.How quickly can payments settle?
What happens when volumes spike?
How much visibility do we have over liquidity?
How many intermediary layers sit between us and settlement?
According to Michael Boel, Co-Head of Clearing Technology at Banking Circle, these are increasingly the questions fintechs and payment firms ask when they start scaling seriously.
“Five years ago, most fintech conversations were about front-end customer experience and speed to market,” he says. “Now the conversation is shifting deeper into infrastructure – because operational complexity grows very quickly once firms scale internationally.”
That shift is happening at the same time as one of the biggest infrastructure modernisation programmes in UK payments.
Why The Bank of England is Modernising RTGS
In 2025, CHAPS processed £93.9 trillion of payments through the Bank of England’s Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) infrastructure. That is around £371 billion every working day.
Yet payment expectations today look very different to when much of the infrastructure underpinning global banking was originally designed. Financial institutions increasingly expect:
- real-time payment visibility
- richer payment data
- faster settlement
- longer operating windows
- stronger operational resilience
- infrastructure capable of supporting always-on economies
The Bank of England’s RTGS renewal programme supported that evolution.
According to the Bank of England, the renewed RTGS service was designed to improve resilience, support innovation, enhance interoperability and enable richer data through ISO 20022 messaging standards.
Source: Bank of England RTGS renewal programme
For Michael, those changes reflect a broader shift happening globally across financial infrastructure.
“The industry is moving toward more real-time, data-rich and operationally resilient payment models,” he says. “And as that happens, the infrastructure layer becomes increasingly strategic for financial institutions.”
Why Direct Participation Matters
Most financial institutions do not connect directly to CHAPS.
Instead, they rely on sponsor banks or correspondent relationships to access clearing and settlement infrastructure, such as CHAPS – the UK’s high value payment system, indirectly. That model has supported global payments for decades, but it can also create operational friction as firms scale.
“The challenges often appear behind the scenes,” Michael explains.
“Liquidity management becomes more complex. Reconciliation becomes harder. Payment investigations take longer. Treasury teams need better visibility. And operational resilience becomes more important with every additional dependency.”
Following the Bank of England’s RTGS renewal programme, Banking Circle is set to become one of the first new direct CHAPS participants — and the first new joining bank in recent years.
For clients, Michael says the significance is not simply direct access itself.
It is what operating closer to the clearing layer enables.
“For fintechs, PSPs and regulated financial institutions operating internationally, infrastructure decisions directly affect customer experience and operational scale,” he says.
“The closer you operate to settlement infrastructure, the greater control you can have over payment flows, liquidity visibility and operational resilience.”
Infrastructure is becoming a competitive advantage
For years, payments infrastructure was largely viewed as operational plumbing. Today, that is changing.
As payment expectations move toward real-time and always-on models, infrastructure strategy is becoming increasingly important for firms looking to scale efficiently across markets and currencies.
The institutions building modern payment businesses increasingly want:
- fewer intermediary dependencies
- faster settlement
- better liquidity oversight
- stronger reconciliation
- infrastructure designed for scale
For Banking Circle, becoming one of fewer than 40 direct CHAPS participants — and one of the first new joining banks following the Bank of England’s RTGS renewal programme — reflects our continued investment in infrastructure designed for regulated financial institutions scaling internationally. As payment expectations evolve toward more real-time, resilient and data-rich models, we remain focused on helping clients move money globally with less friction, greater transparency and infrastructure built closer to the clearing layer itself.
Sources and References
- Bank of England CHAPS overview
- Bank of England RTGS renewal programme
- Bank of England ISO 20022 migration overview
- Bank for International Settlements cross-border payments report
