The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) began operating as a single national exchange, created by combining six state-based exchanges. This consolidation set the foundation for uniform listing rules and a shared marketplace for Australian companies and investors. It also made it easier to modernize trading and post-trade systems across the country.
ASX began the first phase of CHESS (Clearing House Electronic Subregister System), which moved Australia toward electronic clearing and settlement. CHESS helped replace manual paperwork with electronic records of trades and ownership, improving speed and reliability. This became core national infrastructure for post-trade processing in Australian equities.
ASX completed the final phase of CHESS implementation, making the system fully operational. With CHESS in place, post-trade processing relied more on electronic workflows rather than manual settlement. This step supported higher trading volumes and more consistent processing across the Australian market.
ASX demutualised, shifting from a member-owned structure to a company model. This change was meant to broaden ownership and help the exchange compete and invest more like other modern financial services firms. It also set up ASX to raise capital and be accountable to shareholders.
ASX’s shares began trading on its own market, making it both an exchange operator and a listed company. This increased transparency through public reporting and market scrutiny. It also aligned ASX’s governance with expectations placed on other publicly traded companies.
ASX combined with SFE Corporation, bringing major futures and derivatives markets under the same group as Australia’s main equities exchange. This merger expanded ASX beyond cash equities into a larger, multi-asset exchange group. It also increased the importance of ASX technology and risk controls across more markets.
ASX selected Digital Asset to develop distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions aimed at modernizing post-trade services, with a focus on replacing CHESS. DLT is a shared database approach (sometimes associated with “blockchain”) designed to synchronize records across participants. The choice signaled ASX’s interest in a major technology shift for clearing and settlement.
A hardware failure disrupted ASX systems and led the exchange to halt the share market during the trading day. ASX reported that a failover (automatic switch to backup systems) behaved unexpectedly, creating inconsistent data for some securities. The incident raised concerns about operational resilience in a market seen as national infrastructure.
ASX announced it would replace CHESS using DLT developed with Digital Asset, after consultations and internal assessment. The plan aimed to modernize clearing, settlement, and related registry functions that support cash equity markets. This became a high-profile technology program watched closely by regulators and market participants.
On the first trading day after a major upgrade to ASX Trade, ASX closed the equity market for most of the day due to a software issue tied to combination trading orders. ASIC publicly stated it viewed the outage with significant concern and expected ASX to meet its obligations for a fair, orderly, and transparent market. The event added pressure to strengthen testing, change management, and incident response.
After repeated delays, ASX stopped pursuing the DLT-based system intended to replace CHESS. Ending this approach meant rethinking years of design and development work and resetting the market’s upgrade path. The decision highlighted the risk of large-scale infrastructure projects where many participants depend on a single system.
ASX signed an agreement with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to deliver a next-generation platform to replace the existing cash equities clearing and settlement system. The plan is structured in releases, with clearing expected first and settlement/sub-register services later. This marked a shift from a DLT-led rebuild to a more conventional large-scale systems implementation aimed at restoring confidence in the upgrade program.
Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) (1987–present)