ASX gears up for fintech era as data foundation for financial services industry

The Australian Securities Exchange will push ahead with attempts to establish itself as a global technology pioneer, despite criticism of its governance, with its operations boss pledging to balance risk with the flexibility required to thrive in the fintech era of blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Speaking to The Australian Financial Review following the release of a review by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission into its technology practices, ASX chief operating officer Tim Hogben said an ongoing technology improvement program was already bearing fruit and that the exchange was outpacing global peers in opening up its data for customers and startups.

The ASIC report had originated from a costly outage in September 2016 and found that, while the exchange was performing in line with its international peers in terms of uptime (a measure of system reliability) and managing risk, it was not as advanced as the standard set by the broader financial services sector. It sat uncomfortably alongside a growing reputation for innovation the local exchange is garnering through a world-first initiative to develop a blockchain clearance and settlement system.

Mr Hogben said the regulatory bar was being set understandably higher due to the amount of change and transformation being driven into the operations of finance industry organisations and the exchange itself. He observed that ASIC largely accepted that ongoing upgrade work was addressing the earlier problems.

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Source: ASX gears up for fintech era as data foundation for financial services industry | afr.com