The Australian Securities Exchange to Start Using Blockchain Tech in 2020

The blockchain-based system will come to replace the old Chess post-trade settlement system currently used by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The financial technology is planned to go live at approximately the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021.

The ASX will use a new distributed ledger technology (DLT) to manage the Australian financial market. According to the consultation paper published by the ASX, Digital Asset, a famous New York-based fintech company building DLT products, will become the main performer of the initiative. Furthermore, the project will introduce 50 new features, which are seen as a stimulating factor for reducing costs.  

Actually, the DLT to be designed by Digital Asset has some similar points with the blockchain technology behind bitcoin and some altcoins. First of all, it will create a stable secure record of data that functions as a single source of truth. However, it won’t need any public network to verify a transaction, as is the case with bitcoin. The ASX will be a single trusted institution, while the whole DLT platform will become a private network, allowing access to only known participants. 

The ASX is planning to start the replacement from Chess to the DLT with customer tests over a weekend in the first quarter of 2019. The main testing will be arranged in June 2020.