Bank of Uganda takes RTGS and ACH offline from 5 to 9 November for an upgrade

The Bank of Uganda said on the evening of 3 November 2026 that it will suspend its two core interbank payment systems for a planned upgrade. The Real Time Gross Settlement system, which settles large transfers between banks one by one, and the Automated Clearing House, which handles batches of smaller payments such as salaries, bills and regular transfers, will go offline at 5pm on Thursday 5 November. Both are due back at 9am on Monday 9 November, so Friday 6 November is lost as a working day. The central bank says the work is part of putting the East African Community's cross-border payment system masterplan into practice, which regional central bank governors have approved, and that it should make the national payments infrastructure more efficient, reliable, resilient and interoperable. While the systems are down, banks, government bodies, businesses and individuals cannot send or receive payments through either of them. Local press reports that cheques due to clear on Friday will wait until Monday, and that analysts expect a backlog when processing restarts. The notice does not list which other channels will keep working. It tells customers with urgent payments to complete them before the shutdown and to ask their own bank about alternatives. Banking sources quoted by the Daily Monitor expect transfers within the same bank, mobile money, ATM withdrawals and card payments at the till to carry on, but the central bank has not confirmed this. For merchants selling to or operating in Uganda, the main risk sits in the money that moves after the sale. Payouts from payment providers into accounts at other banks, supplier payments, refunds sent by bank transfer and Friday payrolls can all be held up, and anything queued over the weekend may arrive late on Monday or Tuesday.