ASX shares edge down after CHESS outage response
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More news: Shares in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) lowered after the bourse operator released its review into a CHESS outage last month.
ASX shares were down 0.9% to $64.12 by 2:50pm AEDT while the ASX 200 fell 0.6%..
The ASX also announced it had allocated a $1 million credit rebate to settlement participants as a way to acknowledge the disruptive impact on its customers.
ASX allocates $1 million credit to customers after 'unprecedented' outage
The news: The ASX has released its official review of a CHESS outage that last year forced it to reschedule and delay settlement of trades, apologising to settlement participants and has allocated a $1 million in credit rebate for the outage.
The context: The review released at midday on Thursday blamed a 10-year-old tech problem to do with the system's memory allocation, suggesting it had triggered a "combination of events" that led to the "unprecedented" disruption.
The ASX said the $1 million credit disbursement will be allocated in the form of a rebate to settlement participants. The total amount to be shared will be distributed proportionate to each settlement participant's revenue contribution for the first half of FY25. The credit will be reflected in the invoice for February 2025.
CHESS was hit by an outage on Friday 20 December last year, placing its transaction processing on hold and delaying settlement of trades. It worked over the weekend to have the issue resolved on Monday.
The technology and attempts to upgrade it have been been a thorn in the side of the exchange for years. The CHESS replacement program has been delayed time and time again.
In 2022 it abandoned a long-running program to replace it with a blockchain system, writing off an investment of $245 million as a result.
Last year it entrusted Tata Consultancy Services with the project, estimated to cost between $105 million and $125 million over multiple years.
What they said: “Not being able to complete Batch Settlement is unprecedented and we fully appreciate the seriousness of this matter. While the incident was successfully resolved such that the market could open normally on the next business day, this does not meet the high operating standards expected of ASX and which we expect of ourselves," ASX CEO Helen Lofthouse said in a statement.
“I wanted to write to customers directly to once again apologise for the incident and to assure them that we’ve taken steps to fix the issue and prevent reoccurrence. We’ve also outlined the current action plan that considers any further technical reviews and potential incident management protocols including how we engage stakeholders.”
The sources: ASX media release, ASX incident report
