ASIC Issues Statement on Review of September ASX Technical Failure

On 19 September, the ASX equity market experienced a technical failure that affected the proper operation of the market. This caused a delay to the market opening and an early market close, as well as generating a series of trade cancellations throughout the day.

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A week later, ASX Managing Director and CEO Dominic Stevens issued a statement on behalf of the exchange detailing the series of events surrounding the outage.

At the time, he said: “I am determined that in understanding what happened on Monday we will emerge stronger and better able to manage the market’s myriad challenges. We are directing our efforts to ensure there is no recurrence and listening to what our customers say about improving the way we communicate with them. And of course, we are also cooperating closely with ASIC ASIC The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the prime regulator in Australia for corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit. It is empowered under the financial service laws to facilitate, regulate, and enforce Australian financial laws. The Australian Commission was set up and is administered under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001. ASIC was initially the Australian Securities Commission based on the 1989 ASC Act. Initially, the The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the prime regulator in Australia for corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit. It is empowered under the financial service laws to facilitate, regulate, and enforce Australian financial laws. The Australian Commission was set up and is administered under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001. ASIC was initially the Australian Securities Commission based on the 1989 ASC Act. Initially, the Read this Term to help with its review.”

Statement

In a statement released today on the review of the ASX technical failure, the watchdog has reviewed the initial incident report prepared by ASX which identified a hardware failure as the triggering event of the particular incident.

Secondary issues arising from this failure are now also being investigated by ASX and ASIC will review the conclusions from this further work.

Other Considerations

As part of its role, ASIC is continuing to also review a number of associated considerations which arose on and from the incident which relate to the way in which ASX, brokers, investors and other stakeholders reacted and responded to the issue.

Historically, Australian trading platforms like ASX have at least met global benchmarks for up-times and reliability, with up-times on an annual basis regularly close to 100 per cent.

The purpose of ASIC’s ongoing review is to determine whether there are any changes which could assist the market and market users to function more effectively, should such circumstances reoccur in the future. ASIC will publish its findings in due course.