ASX chief presses for T+1 before the 2029 CHESS completion

ASX chief executive Anthony Attia wants Australia to adopt next-business-day securities settlement before the final CHESS replacement stage scheduled for 2029. In a 14 October Reuters interview, he said he planned to consult regulators and market participants about bringing the transition forward. His proposal reopens the sequencing question; it sets no agreed implementation date.[1]

Australia’s cash equity market currently settles on T+2 through CHESS. ASX formed a T+1 working group in December 2023, published an industry white paper on 23 April 2024 and released a feedback summary on 2 August that year. The new initiative therefore builds on an established review of shorter settlement, with particular attention to whether it can proceed while the underlying infrastructure is being replaced.[2][1]

Infrastructure readiness remains central

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s 23 September assessment provides the supervisory backdrop. It found that one or more ASX clearing and settlement facilities only partly observed standards covering governance, comprehensive risk management, credit risk and operational risk. ASX’s transformation programme offers a route to address those weaknesses, but the RBA said the organisation was still falling short in several important areas.[3]

The regulator also recognised better CHESS resourcing and contingency arrangements following the December 2024 settlement incident. That supported an upgrade for ASX Clear and ASX Settlement against the operational-risk standard, from not observed to partly observed. The RBA confined that improvement to the specific CHESS measures and stressed the need to deliver organisational change while maintaining reliable critical services.[3]

A shorter window for funding and repairs

For brokers, T+1 brings allocation, confirmation, cash funding, securities delivery and exception repair into a tighter operating timetable. ASX’s white paper identifies trade-date allocation and reconciliation, matching deadlines and links between securities orders and associated FX transactions as practical areas for assessment. International investors face the additional constraint of completing those tasks across time zones.[4]

FX settlement deserves attention alongside the securities timetable. Australian Foreign Exchange Committee minutes record the Global Foreign Exchange Committee’s work on the impact of accelerated securities settlement on FX. The connection is straightforward: a securities buyer needing Australian dollars must be able to arrange and settle the currency leg in time to meet the securities obligation.[5][4]

Bringing the transition forward could reduce the interval between execution and completion and bring Australia closer to other markets’ settlement practices. It would also place more change demands on participants while CHESS work continues. Waiting avoids some simultaneous implementation work but retains the operational consequences of different settlement cycles across markets. ASX’s own discussion material treats those benefits and costs as issues requiring market-wide evaluation.[2][4]

A usable implementation plan will need to connect the target date with tested processing capacity, funding cutoffs, participant readiness and contingency arrangements. Attia has put earlier delivery back on the agenda; consultation now has to establish how that timetable would work across the market.[1][4][3]

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