Australia’s corporate regulators have gathered a heavyweight panel of financial experts to investigate the Australian Stock Exchange’s internal operations following a series of failures, including a disastrous $250 million (US$163.1 million) blockchain project that collapsed after seven years of development.
Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) announcement On Wednesday, three panel members were appointed to conduct a survey of the ASX Group, focusing on governance, capacity and risk management frameworks within the country’s major stock exchanges.
The panel examines the core organizational and cultural driving forces that contributed to recent compliance incidents, assesses whether ASX has the right capabilities for a stable market infrastructure, and examines the group’s financial goals and accountability framework. Referencing conditions for inquiries.
The panel will be chaired by Rob Whitfield, former CEO of Westpac Banking Corporation’s Banking Corporation and current Director of Commonwealth Bank.
He brought 30 years of banking experience and was awarded the Order of Australia in 2020 for his services to banking and administration.
Whitfield will be joined by Christine Holman, non-executive director of AGL Ltd and Christine Holman, executive director of Collins Foods Ltd, and Guy Debelle, 35 years of experience in the media, property and technology sectors, as well as former Reserve Bank vice governor of Australia and current chairman of Fundssa.
Failed off-chain
The investigation began in 2016 as an ambitious attempt to modernize the exchange’s 25-year-old clearing and payment systems, following the failure of ASX’s blockchain-based chess exchange project.
After seven years of development delays and cost overruns, ASX shelved the project After a terrible independent audit by Accenture in November 2022, identifying “critical solution design challenges.” As a result, the exchange wrote down US$170 million in pre-tax losses.
By May 2023, the ASX was officially held Abandoned Blockchain technology.
Project Director Tim Whiteley confirmed that the exchange “needs to use more traditional technology than the original solution to achieve business outcomes.”
The collapse of the project has since resulted in legal action. ASIC sues ASX Last August, alleged misleading statements about the progress of the project.
ASX had already paid $1,050,000 Penalty (Approximately 684,000 US dollars) Last March, on separate compliance issues related to market integrity rules.
Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer at Komodo Platform, said ASX failures have “investment trust,” highlighting the risks associated with excessive predictions for enterprise blockchain initiatives.
“The exchange has experienced several outages and failed to implement the promised blockchain project,” Stadelmann said. Decryption. “Without competition, ASX will grow bloated and ineffective.”
The panel should provide recommendations to address the shortcomings identified by March 31, 2026. The ASIC is set up to publish reports to guide potential regulatory actions against ASX.
Exchanges with regulators did not respond immediately Decrypt’s Request a comment.
edit Sebastian Sinclair
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