ASX is blaming its technology provider for the CHESS platform delay.
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has been building the world’s first industrial-scale blockchain use case — a new post-trade solution to replace its legacy Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) platform, which has been running for more than 25 years. The organisation had initially expected the system was going to be ready for industry-wide testing in July 2020, which would have resulted in the system being ready to go-live by April 2021. However, the ASX revised the implementation timetable for replacing CHESS due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To that end, it announced at the time, the CHESS platform would be ready by April 2022. This date was then revised months later to April 2023. During the organisation’s 2022 half-year results in February, ASX CEO Dominic Stevens confirmed the organisation was still on-track to achieve this. On Monday, the ASX announced that the April 2023 go-live date, however, is likely to be delayed — once again.
