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The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has delayed the roll-out of a blockchain-based post-trade system until 2022.
ASX is developing the platform to replace its legacy Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS).
The firm’s CEO, Dominic Stevens, says the system will be ready for industry-wide testing in July this year. Full functionality is set for April 2021.
Digital Asset has been working with the exchange on the project since 2017.
ASX describes the project as the “world’s first” adoption of blockchain technology as part of an exchange’s core services.
Peter Hiom, deputy CEO for ASX, says the revised timetable provides time to deal with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“ASX has undertaken a comprehensive, risk-based approach to the replan of the CHESS replacement project,” says Hiom.
“We have listened to the diverse views of stakeholders and accommodated feedback on timing, user readiness and changes to functionality.”
ASX has opened up a four-week consultation on CHESS. The firm reports “significant progress” on the switch out so far.
This includes replacement applications and the delivery of a distributed ledger to several ASX technology environments and data centres.
The CHESS replacement has seen delays before. Back in September 2018 ASX pushed the deployment date back to “between Q$ 2020 and Q4 2021.”
It had originally planned to go live on the system in March 2018.
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