In the banking and financial services sector, CLS stands for Continuous Linked Settlement, which represents a vital financial market utility dedicated to eliminating settlement risk—historically known as Herstatt risk—in the global foreign exchange market. Established collaboratively by the world's leading commercial banks, CLS operates a specialized payment-versus-payment infrastructure that ensures the simultaneous settlement of both legs of a multi-currency foreign exchange transaction. By executing multilateral netting across participating financial institutions, the system dramatically reduces the amount of intraday liquidity required to complete daily trades, cutting funding requirements by massive margins while maintaining strict compliance with central bank regulations. Regulated primarily by major international central banks with the Federal Reserve acting as the lead overseer, CLS processes trillions of dollars worth of foreign exchange transactions daily, serving as an irreplaceable backbone of international financial stability and risk management.