Early results from an ASX consultation show an overwhelming majority of CHESS users can meet a proposed timetable: 91% of CHESS users who responded can meet a revised go-live date for the transition to distributed ledger technology (DLT), currently scheduled for April 2022.
CHESS users are those organizations that plan to connect to the new system, including clearing and settlement participants, product issuer settlement participants, approved market operators, back office software developers, payment providers and share registries.
Dominic Stevens, ASX managing director and CEO, said in a statement: “We appreciate the input and responses we’ve received from the market – not just for this consultation but for the CHESS replacement project overall. The project has taken on even greater significance in recent months, with the accelerating need for more innovation, digitization and straight-through processing of transactions and corporate actions. While recognizing there is still much for everyone to do, we are excited by the fact we are close to 100% complete on customer functionality and set to move into industry-wide testing in the coming months.”