Introduction

As the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) advances its vision of a continuously operating financial infrastructure, the Philippine payment ecosystem is entering a new phase of real-time activity. The evolution toward extended settlement windows—eventually supporting near 24/7 operations—represents a structural shift for banks, payment service providers, and market infrastructures.

Questions Banks Should Ask Today

• Can our payment infrastructure support continuous RTGS connectivity?
• Do we have real-time liquidity visibility across payment rails?
• How quickly can our systems detect fraud in high-value payments?
• Are our payment platforms prepared for multi-lateral cross-border instant payment interoperability?

The Risk Multiplier of Continuous Settlement

In the Philippines, PhilPaSSplus is the backbone of peso settlement in central bank money. It supports interbank transfers, securities settlement, and ultimately underpins the retail payment ecosystem.

That ecosystem is expanding rapidly.

In 2023 alone, InstaPay and PESONet processed ₱12.8 trillion (USD 228 billion) across more than 929 million transactions. By 2025, combined values reached approximately ₱24.7 trillion (USD 440 billion) with 4.8 billion transactions. Digital payments now account for more than half of all retail transactions in the Philippines.

Much of this value ultimately depends on final settlement in PhilPaSSplus.

Extending RTGS hours strengthens liquidity and cross-border alignment, consistent with global trends under the G20 roadmap for faster, cheaper, safer and more transparent payments. However, it also amplifies several risk dimensions:

• Fraud velocity increases. Continuous Real-time settlement compresses response windows from hours to seconds.
• Operational fatigue intensifies. Continuous systems reduce traditional pause points for reconciliation and review.
• Cross-channel exposure expands. Retail-originated fraud can rapidly propagate toward high-value settlement rails.
• Liquidity impact accelerates. Fraud events in a 24/7 environment can quickly affect intraday and overnight positions.

These risks are not theoretical. BSP-supervised institutions reported ₱5.82 billion (USD 104 million) in cyber-related losses in 2024, slightly up from ₱5.67 billion (USD 101 million) in 2023. Phishing and card-not-present fraud alone accounted for over ₱3.3 billion (USD 59 million). Cybercrime complaints to authorities tripled year-on-year in 2024.

The Philippines also recorded one of the highest suspected digital fraud rates globally in 2024, at 13.4% of digital transactions—well above the global average. As digital adoption rises, so does the attack surface.

In a 24/7 RTGS environment, these pressures intensify.

Liquidity Becomes a 24/7 Discipline

Continuous settlement fundamentally changes how banks manage liquidity.

Historically, RTGS systems operated within defined windows that allowed institutions to forecast and rebalance positions during the day. As settlement hours expand, liquidity management becomes a continuous discipline.

Banks must coordinate liquidity across multiple payment rails simultaneously:

• RTGS settlement systems
• Instant payment platforms such as InstaPay
• Batch clearing systems such as PESONet
• Cross-border payment corridors

In a 24/7 environment, delays in liquidity allocation can cascade across payment channels. Institutions increasingly require real-time visibility into balances, settlement queues, and liquidity usage across infrastructures.

This shift is transforming liquidity management from a treasury function into a real-time operational capability.

Cross-Border Interoperability Raises the Stakes

The Philippines is among the world’s largest recipients of remittances, with cross-border flows representing a critical component of the national economy.

As central banks pursue the G20 roadmap for faster and more transparent cross-border payments, the interoperability between domestic infrastructures and international payment networks becomes increasingly important.

Extended settlement windows support this evolution by aligning operating hours across jurisdictions. However, they also introduce new operational and risk management requirements.

Fraud monitoring, liquidity visibility, and payment orchestration must operate seamlessly across domestic and international payment rails.

Institutions that can unify these capabilities gain greater resilience as payment ecosystems become globally interconnected.

Regulation Has Already Raised the Baseline

BSP Circular No. 1140 requires supervised institutions to deploy automated and real-time fraud monitoring and detection systems and to integrate these with anti-money laundering (AML) frameworks into a cohesive financial crime prevention architecture.

In other words, real-time fraud monitoring is no longer aspirational—it is a regulatory expectation.

As operating hours extend, compliance with these standards becomes structurally more complex. Manual reviews, batch alerts, and static rule engines are not designed for uninterrupted settlement cycles.

A 24/7 RTGS system demands 24/7 intelligence.

AI as Embedded Infrastructure

Artificial intelligence is often described as an innovation layer. In continuous settlement environments, it becomes foundational.

Threat actors are already using AI to scale phishing campaigns, enhance identity takeover attempts, and automate fraud typologies. Defensive systems must evolve accordingly.

AI-driven fraud prevention capabilities can:

• Detect behavioral anomalies across participants and counterparties in real time
• Adapt dynamically to emerging fraud patterns
• Correlate liquidity movements with suspicious transactional behavior
• Reduce false positives while accelerating high-confidence intervention
• Integrate fraud and AML signals into a unified monitoring framework

In a continuous settlement model, static controls introduce latency. Latency introduces exposure. AI-enabled systems reduce latency.

When embedded directly within RTGS and instant payment infrastructures—not bolted on as an afterthought—advanced analytics transform risk management from reactive investigation to predictive protection.

Integration Is the Strategic Imperative

Extended operating hours does not merely require stronger fraud tools—it requires integrated financial crime frameworks that unify detection, prevention, and response across all channels. Siloed systems fragment insight; integrated systems strengthen resilience.

An effective 24/7 architecture should:

• Connect RTGS, instant payment rails, and centralized fraud monitoring systems
• Share intelligence across channels and counterparties
• Align fraud detection with AML processes and liquidity monitoring
• Provide real-time executive visibility into systemic risk exposure

BSP’s regulatory stance already points toward this model: fraud monitoring and AML systems must operate cohesively. In a 24/7 RTGS environment, fragmentation becomes a systemic vulnerability.

RTGS in an Always-On Payment Ecosystem

While most instant payment systems already operate on a 24/7 basis, the wholesale settlement infrastructures that underpin national financial systems have historically operated within defined daytime windows.

This creates an increasingly important architectural challenge.

Retail payment systems, digital commerce platforms, and cross-border payment corridors now function continuously. Yet many RTGS systems—the ultimate source of settlement finality in central bank money—still operate on limited schedules.

Central banks around the world are therefore evaluating how wholesale settlement infrastructures should evolve to support an always-on financial ecosystem.

Several approaches are emerging:

• Extended RTGS operating hours, allowing greater overlap with global markets
• Liquidity bridges between RTGS systems and instant payment infrastructures
• Prefunding models to support continuous retail payment settlement
• Interoperability frameworks linking domestic infrastructures with cross-border payment networks

In this context, the Philippines’ exploration of extended PhilPaSSplus operating hours reflects a broader global challenge: ensuring that core settlement infrastructures remain aligned with payment ecosystems that increasingly operate without interruption.

The transition is not simply about extending system availability. It requires rethinking how liquidity, risk monitoring, and payment orchestration operate across interconnected payment rails.

Financial infrastructure never sleeps—and risk management must evolve accordingly.

A Strategic Inflection Point for the Philippines

As the Philippine payment ecosystem evolves toward continuous settlement, institutions must rethink how risk management, liquidity monitoring, and payment orchestration operate in real time.

Modern financial infrastructures increasingly embed advanced analytics, intelligent monitoring, and unified liquidity visibility directly within payment systems rather than relying on disconnected controls.

• As settlement infrastructures expand operating hours, banks increasingly require unified platforms that provide real-time visibility across RTGS systems, instant payment networks, and cross-border payment channels.
• For participating institutions, extended RTGS operations will also reshape treasury and liquidity management practices, requiring banks to maintain real-time visibility across settlement positions throughout the day and night.

Platforms such as those developed by Montran are designed to support this evolution, enabling financial institutions to operate safely in continuously active settlement environments while maintaining real-time visibility into liquidity, risk, and operational resilience.

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