According to Part 3 of the “Business Operation Guidelines for the RMB Cross-Border Payment System” (hereinafter referred to as the “Guidelines”) issued by the Cross-Border Clearing Corporation, the operational schedule for CIPS is as follows:

CIPS operates 24 hours a day, five days a week, plus an additional four hours, providing round-the-clock service on statutory working days. At the same time, it supports external services during domestic holidays and overseas working days; the specific operating schedule shall be subject to the announcements released by the cross-border clearing company.

The system operates in two shifts: a daytime shift and a nighttime shift. On regular business days, the daytime shift runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (during which the period from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. is reserved for operational preparation, and the period from 5:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. is dedicated to end-of-shift procedures such as zeroing out data). On the first business day following a public holiday, the daytime shift starts earlier, at 4:30 a.m. (during which the period from 4:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. is reserved for operational preparation). The nighttime shift runs from 5:00 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. the next day (during which the period from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. is reserved for end-of-day procedures such as zeroing out data).

The CIPS operating schedule comprises seven states: Business Preparation, Daytime Processing, Daytime Business Cut-off, Daytime Final Processing, Nighttime Processing, Nighttime Business Cut-off, and End-of-Day Processing.