The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) blockchain upgrade was delayed for the fourth time

The Australian stock exchange ASX said today that the launch of its blockchain-based post-trade solution CHESS, which was originally scheduled for April 2023, will most likely be delayed. If it is postponed, it will be the project’s third postponement since it began in 2016.

CHESS, or Clearing House Electronic Subregister System, was initially slated for a blockchain upgrade by April 2021 to replace a transactions settlement structure adopted nearly 30 years ago.

As a replacement for the current CHESS system, the new version uses blockchain and smart contracts for clearing and settlement, enabling greater automation and efficiency in post-trade processes. The CHESS solution is based on Digital Assets’ smart contract language DAML and VMWare’s enterprise blockchain.

The next iteration of code from its technology partner, Digital Asset, was scheduled to be deployed in April and has been pushed back to July. This release incorporates “non-functional tuning” and code fixes identified by customers. ASX will share additional timeline details in April. 

These software changes follow the November 2021 launch of the first iteration of the CHESS Industry Test Environment (ITE1). While service providers and stock market developers previously had access before this date, it was for limited functionality and low volumes.

Also in November, Australian Securities & Investments Commission, ASIC insisted that there be an independent review of the progress of CHESS and whether it is fit for purposes. That followed an IBM report that found an outage of the existing ASX operational system in 2020 resulted from a software upgrade that was not ready to go live.

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