Credit: IBM
IBM Australia has flagged a series of faults as the independent expert reviewer into the Australian Securities Exchange’s (ASX) outage in November 2020, with one regulator labelling the conclusion as “disappointing”.
On 16 November 2020, the ASX’s equity trading platform, ASX Trade, was hit by a major outage for most of the day, with the cause identified as a software issue related to the trading of multiple securities in a single order, after an upgrade.
To investigate the matter, the ASX appointed IBM Australia to undertake an independent expert review into whether the upgrade project met internationally recognised standards or frameworks and relevant securities industry practices.
Out of 75 capabilities, 58 were met or exceeded. However, the risk and issue management, project compliance to ASX practices, project requirements and the project test strategy and planning did not meet industry practices.
Essentially, while the project had sufficient resources, IBM found the upgrade could have used additional and independent scrutiny.
Other key shortcomings of the project included factors that pointed to the ASX’s system was not ready to go-live and there were gaps in the project delivery risk and issue management process.
The ASX’s test documentation and related process implementation was also not consistent with industry practice expectations. The existing governance process was found to have not acted fast enough, creating a longer period before an upgrade took place, which in turn raised operating risks.
In addition, IBM found the ASX didn’t have a formal quality management process and there were opportunities for it to improve its enterprise-wide project practices.
"The independent expert found that ASX met or exceeded leading industry practices in most areas, but the conclusion that the project was not ready for go-live is very disappointing,” ASIC chair Joe Longo said.
“ASX has acknowledged and accepted the need for improvement. We do, however, require assurance that these improvements are implemented effectively and result in an overall improvement to ASX’s enterprise wide project management practices.”
Indeed, both ASIC and fellow regulator the Reserve Bank of Australia expect the ASX to apply the insights provided by IBM’s report to current and future projects maintain proper managing and implementation standards.
