The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) announced a roadmap for the ongoing investment and maintenance of the current CHESS platform and have also put a roadmap in place for the new CHESS replacement solution design, said Helen Lofthouse, managing director and CEO of ASX during an investor day presentation.
She said: “In Q4, we plan to announce the new solution design for CHESS replacement; and we will further iterate on our platform modernization plan…(and) we published our special report on the current CHESS platform, confirming that it is operating to an appropriate standard for critical market infrastructure, along with a roadmap for ongoing support and maintenance.”
Tim Whiteley, who first joined ASX to lead the CHESS replacement solution design, and is soon to be the new chief information officer, provided an update on CHESS and the broader tech capability plan.
He said: “We remain on track to announce the solution design in the last quarter of this calendar year, and we continue to explore all options for the solution design.”
This work includes consideration of options in four areas: looking at the previous DLT based solution and considering ways to change the existing solution; assessing options to build a new solution, using conventional technologies and architectures; investigating the option of a product-based solution, and ASX has issued an RoI to product vendors; looking at our current CHESS system and how we could upgrade the existing technology stack and build out of the functionality required for the CHESS Replacement scope.
Beyond CHESS, ASX’s technology modernization program includes an equities data warehouse and Trading and Derivatives Clearing applications and the technology supporting them. The latter in particular requires significant priority and investment.
Discussing some of the components of the overall strategy, Whiteley said: “By investing in technology platforms, especially Data, APIs, Cloud and Identity, we can significantly reduce the amount of technology variation across business lines. We will also leverage the automation that comes from these platforms, to improve the speed of implementing change.”