Australia's corporate watchdog said on Monday it had asked ASX Ltd to conduct an independent review into whether the bourse operator had sufficient resources to operate its markets, after a software issue disrupted trading last month.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which in November raised concerns about the stock exchange's infrastructure, expects https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2020-releases/20-334mr-update-on-asic-s-review-of-november-s-asx-trade-outage the review to be conducted in the first half of 2021.
The ASX was forced to halt trading 20 minutes after opening on Nov. 16 due to an issue with its new trading platform for the equity market that affected trading of multiple securities in a single order.
The ASIC is assessing whether ASX has sufficient financial, technological and human resources to operate its markets, and said too many firms were reliant on the ASX to trade listed securities.
The regulator said it expects market participants to review arrangements for dealing with disruptions and adjust their algorithms to reduce reliance on any one market operator or order book, adding that it would review the processes next year.
(Reporting by Soumyajit Saha and Shashwat Awasthi in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
