Australian Stock Exchange And Year 2000

Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) has completed all "preventative" measures possible to ensure there is no significant risk of failure of critical services in the transition to the year 2000. ASX has spent more than two years ensuring that the sharemarket and the wider community suffer as little disruption as possible as a result of the date processing problem. In addition to ensuring that its own systems were as protected as possible, ASX required all listed companies to issue progressive Y2K-preparedness statements to the market, by March and December of last year and by September of this year. Given the inter-related nature of the finance industry, it was considered essential that that all market participants were also fully prepared. ASX assisted by providing stand-alone Y2K test facilities to assist in their own preparations. In April this year a Y2K industry test for equities was successfully completed. ASX co-ordinated the test, which involved 23 organisations. These included major stockbroking firms, banks and major custodians (non-broking participants), as well as Australia's largest share registry processor. Over the New Year weekend, more than one hundred ASX staff will be on hand to ensure a smooth transition following the close of normal trading for the year on Thursday 30 December. The following day, 31 December, will be a non-trading and non-settlement day for ASX, in line with other exchanges worldwide, although it will remain an ASX working day. Immediately after midnight on 1 January 2000, ASX systems and services will be subject to final verification. Once this has been completed, the critical systems will be made available to market participants to undertake connectivity testing. Verifying systems' ability to communicate fully is particularly important as it is only from 1 January that the underlying telecommunications national infrastructure will be available for ASX and participants to use under Y2K conditions. ASX systems will be made available for external connectivity as follows: 9.00 am, EST Signals (market information dissemination to subscribers); 9.30 am, Derivatives Clearing System (DCS); 11.00 am, ASXtra (ASX Extranet site); 12.00 noon, SEATS (Equities trading system); 12.00 noon, CHESS (Equities and warrants settlement and registration); 12.00 noon ,CLICK (Derivatives Trading Facility). These measures will be duplicated at ASX's back-up site, which replicates all ASX critical systems. To maximise public confidence and awareness, ASX will ensure the community and the media are kept informed at all stages of the transition process through progress reports on Saturday morning, at 12.00 noon and 5.00 pm on 1 January. These reports will be available on the ASX web site (www.asx.com.au) and through ASX Customer Service. Listed companies will be able to use these services to inform themselves as to the state of progress. ASX Web Site, www.asx.com.au, Available 24 hours. ASX Customer Service, Tel: 1300 300 279 (domestic), Tel: (+61 2) 9338 0000 (international callers) Availability over transition period: 31/12/1999 08:30 to 18:00; 01/01/2000 08:30 to 18:00; 02/01/2000 08:30 to 13:00; 03/01/2000 08:30 to 18:00. "While ASX makes no guarantees, we believe that we have completed all the preventative measures that could be reasonably expected and that the risk of a material failure resulting from a fault in ASX critical services is not significant,'' ASX managing director Richard Humphry said. "ASX has declared its systems to be 'Y2K-compliant' and believes every effort has been made to achieve a smooth transition into the new year and beyond. This is in keeping with the leading role taken by ASX in educating the financial industry and the wider community on the Y2K issue. "We remain confident that any disruption caused by the date processing problem will be kept to a minimum and manageable level.''