An Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) logo is displayed at its headquarters in Sydney, Australia, August 19, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
- ASX outage affects 80 stocks, not cybersecurity-related
- ASX faces criticism from ASIC and RBA over risk management
- ASX shares down 2.8%, S&P/ASX200 Index down 0.6%
Dec 1 (Reuters) – Embattled stock exchange operator Australian Securities Exchange
is facing fresh pressure to enact its turnaround plan, after its announcements platform suffered an outage on Monday, forcing about 80 stocks to be placed on a trading halt.
The exchange’s announcements platform went down just before 9 a.m. (2200 GMT) and was still not fully operational at the close of trade on Monday about 4 p.m. (0500 GMT).
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The ASX said it had published some company announcements received after 11:22 a.m. (0022 GMT) but there was still a backlog of announcements that were due to be processed.
“Earlier announcements remain impacted,” an ASX statement on its website showed, adding the exchange was working towards a full remediation of the issue. The ASX said it did not believe the outage was a cybersecurity-related incident.
Companies due to release price-sensitive information during the outage were placed in a trading halt, according to an ASX spokesperson. As many as 80 stocks were affected, ASX said.
ASX trading and settlement were not impacted.
The outage is the latest in a string of problems for the stock exchange operator, which has been criticised by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Reserve Bank of Australia for its performance.
ASX chairman David Clarke told ASX investors in October a multi-year turnaround plan could not afford to fail, as the exchange battled the regulatory fallout following a 2024 trading settlement delay.
Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association Chief Executive Judith Fox said the announcement platform malfunction had highlighted the ASX’s operational risk management problems which had concerned the industry group for some time.
“There is still substantial work to be done to improve ASX’s risk management framework and today’s outage shows that improvements in risk culture take time but we need to see that its risk transformation plan is capable of success.
The ASX disruption comes after U.S.-based CME Group
, the world’s largest exchange operator, on Friday suffered one of its longest outages in years, halting trading across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies.
ASIC is engaging with the ASX on the market announcement platform outage, according to a spokesperson at the regulator.
The RBA in September criticised ASX’s governance, culture and risk-management practices, after a December 2024 settlement-system malfunction raised concerns about the exchange’s ability to maintain secure and resilient market infrastructure.
ASX shares closed down 2.8% at A$56.58 while the benchmark S&P/ASX200 Index
was down about 0.6%. ASX shares are down about 13% so far this year.
Reporting by Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft, Chris Reese and Lincoln Feast.
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Scott Murdoch has been a journalist for more than two decades working for Thomson Reuters and News Corp in Australia. He has specialised in financial journalism for most of his career and covers the Australian financial services sector and superannuation. He is based in Sydney.
