Australian Securities Exchange has opened the customer development environment (CDE) for its new equities clearing and settlement system to replace CHESS, which is based on distributed ledger technology.
Additional functionality will be released at approximately eight-week intervals, culminating in full functionality in the CDE by mid-2020.
ASX is also providing other options to access clearing and settlement services–these being the ISO 20022 global messaging standard via advanced message queuing protocol and SWIFT, and a web browser option for low volume, infrequent usage.
According to ASX, these options will help minimise costs for those who need traditional connectivity options.
The development of CHESS by ASX more than 25 years ago enabled the dematerialisation of the cash equity market, a move to T+5 settlement—which was lowered to T+2 in March 2016—and improved the efficiency and effectiveness of post-trade processing in Australia.
