But an RTGS structure may incentivise free-riding. A bank may find it convenient to delay its outgoing payments (placing it in an internal queue) and wait for incoming funds, in order to avoid the burden of acquiring expensive liquidity in the first place. As banks fail to ‘internalise’ the systemic benefits of acquiring liquidity, RTGS systems may suffer from inefficient liquidity underprovision. Inefficiencies may also emerge for a second reason. Payments queued internally in segregated queues are kept out of the settlement process and do not contribute to ‘recycling’ liquidity. A tempting idea is therefore to pool these pending.
