Australia's Central Bank Tells ASX to Push On With Delayed DLT Trading Platform

ASX, the primary stock exchange in Australia, has been told to press on with the blockchain-based replacement to its aged trading system.

Oct 1, 2020 at 3:58 p.m. UTC

Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 10:03 a.m. UTC

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has told the country's largest stock exchange to develop its blockchain-based trading platform without further delay.

In a public statement Thursday, the RBA and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) told the Australian Stock Exchange it should replace its aged Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) in a safe but timely manner.
This comes days after ASX told shareholders it was yet again delaying the launch of its blockchain-based trading system.
Having confirmed it was replacing CHESS in December 2017, ASX originally planned to launch the new system in Q1 2020.
This was pushed back to August 2021 and delayed again this year until 2022, with the exchange citing disruption from the pandemic.
Both the RBA and ASIC told ASX getting the new system up and running was imperative for improving the overall performance of Australia's financial system as well as bolstering investor's confidence.
In a public reply, ASX said further delays were justified to ensure the DLT-based system was able to meet peak capacity.
ASX had seen an "extraordinary increase in activity levels" during the initial sell-off in mid-March and said it wanted to ensure its new system was able to handle this sort of capacity from the day of launch.
The new implementation timetable will be released later this month.

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