Australia’s central bank criticizes ASX over trading settlement breakdowns
By Scott Murdoch
September 24, 2025 | 8:25 AM GMT+6 | Updated 1 hour ago
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) logo is shown at its Sydney headquarters, Australia, on August 19, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams/File Photo. Licensing rights available for purchase.
Sydney, Sept 24 (Reuters) – The Reserve Bank of Australia said ASX settlement failures Wednesday that the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX.AX) must implement “foundational reforms” to its governance, culture, and risk management following last year’s trading settlement breakdown.
The Reserve Bank of Australia Australian central bank criticism ASX cautioned that ASX’s clearing and settlement units continue to lag behind key regulatory standards and vowed to closely track their progress.
The central bank, which oversees clearing and settlement systems, warned in a statement that it may take additional regulatory action if ASX fails to make improvements.
RBA Assistant Governor RBA blasts ASX (Financial System) Brad Jones said the ASX was failing to meet the regulator’s expectations as an operator of critical national infrastructure.
He stressed that resilient and secure clearing and settlement systems are essential for safeguarding Australia’s financial stability.
The RBA urged ASX to strengthen its risk transformation plan ASX trading settlement issues
and review its business continuity and contingency measures within its clearing and settlement operations.
The ASX faced criticism in December after it was forced to delay a full day of trading settlements due to a failure in its Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS).
“We recognise the urgent need to accelerate our efforts to restore confidence with regulators, ASX CHESS failure particularly in light of last year’s setbacks,” ASX Chief Executive Helen Lofthouse said in a statement.
She noted that the exchange has strengthened contingency measures for CHESS and implemented several improvements, including code updates and expanded memory capacity, to enhance system resilience.
The decades-old CHESS platform typically completes trade settlements ASX system outage within two business days of an agreement between buyer and seller by facilitating the transfer of funds.
In addition to handling settlements, CHESS also records share ownership electronically on its subregister.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney; additional reporting ASX governance criticism by Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair and Christian Schmollinger)
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