RBA Says ASX’s November Market Outage Due to ‘Key Shortcomings’

(Bloomberg) -- An independent review into the ASX Ltd.’s market outage in November has found that there were “several key shortcomings in the project,” according to a statement by the Reserve Bank of Australia and the corporate regulator.

Both the RBA and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said there were factors that suggested the ASX trading system wasn’t ready to go live, gaps in the rigor applied to project delivery, and issues in its risk and issue management. 

Australia’s stock exchange opened for less than 30 minutes before a software issue forced it to close for the rest of the session on Nov. 16. Market operator ASX was refreshing the trading system, which failed on the day despite over a year of testing.

“The independent expert found that ASX met or exceeded leading industry practices in most areas, but the conclusion that the project was not ready for go-live is very disappointing.” said ASIC Chair Joe Longo in a statement on its website. 

Both the RBA and ASIC said the ASX has agreed to address recommendations from the review and apologized for the market disruption.

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