CHESS Replacement

A secure & contemporary replacement system using global standards.
Offering a better way to deliver market efficiencies and innovation opportunities.

Building core and contemporary infrastructure to advance Australia's reputation as a leading economy

ASX is replacing CHESS, its well-functioning but ageing clearing and settlement system, with enhanced technology that will create new opportunities for the Australian market. When it goes live, the new system will offer richer functionality, adopt global standards and use contemporary technology.

It will also provide the option of accessing distributed ledger technology (DLT), which will deliver information more efficiently and stimulate competition by enabling anyone to build new services.

ASX has a history of innovating and upgrading systemically important systems. It is part of what we do. We believe this new system - sitting on new infrastructure - will create a foundation for the next decade and beyond.

Latest updates

On 23 May, ASX hosted an Implementation & Transition working group. The recording and presentation materials are available here.

On 18 May, ASX hosted a Software Provider Readiness working group. The presentation materials are available here.

On 11 May, ASX issued a CHESS Replacement project update to the market confirming that April 2023 go-live is no longer viable. This decision reflects the delay to the remaining delivery of application software, which no longer gives ASX and CHESS users the time allocated to complete their testing and other readiness activities before April 2023.

A new go-live date will be determined after further planning with our technology partner and input from stakeholders on the timing of project milestones. The project update is available here.

On 29 April, ASX published updates to technical documentation including new documentation for functional specification, ISO 20022 messaging, operational readiness scenarios, messaging, FIX messaging, cutover and migration sample customer reports as well as updates to existing documentation. Release notes providing full details can be found here.

On 27 April, ASX opened the second integrated Industry Test Environment (ITE2) for the cash equities clearing and settlement system being built to replace CHESS. As communicated on 28 March, ITE2 opens with a dedicated onboarding period. Release notes have been published for this milestone and can be found here.

On 7 April, ASX hosted an Implementation & Transition working group. The Q&A, recording and presentation materials are available here.

An updated clearing and settlement system

ASX’s CHESS Replacement project will replace an existing, aged COBOL system, with a system built on Java and DAML – the Digital Asset Modelling Language – which has also been chosen by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) to standardise the OTC derivatives world.