Largest Australian Security Exchange To Replace Current Systems With Blockchain

Blockchain adoption is coming in hot for Australia as the country’s leading securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) announced on May 7 the opening of its new blockchain-based Customer Development Environment (CDE).

Per the announcement, the new CDE is a distributed ledger (DLT) solution that will replace CHESS (Clearing House Electronic Subregister System), which is leading post-trade equity clearing and settlement system.

Australia Encouraging Blockchain Adoption?

According to ASX, replacing CHESS with a blockchain-based solution is necessary for reducing the system’s complexity and costs, and to promote new business opportunities.

The software’s code is being released to customers through “seven drops,” the first of which was on April 30, 2019. More drops with increased functionality are expected to be released leading up to mid-2020, where the CDE will then be fully functional.

ASX customers are encouraged to interact and experiment with the CDE, where they are able to design, build, and test system changes.

Explaining the importance of opening the CDE to the public, Cliff Richards, ASX’s Executive General Manager Equity Post-Trade Services, said in a statement:

“Delivering the development environment for customers on schedule is a major step forward in ASX’s CHESS replacement journey. We are proud of this achievement and very grateful for the support of our partner Digital Asset and our customers. While we believe distributed ledger technology offers exciting opportunities for the whole market to innovate, there is much still to do.”

Do you think this blockchain development is positive for cryptocurrencies even though it does not involve crypto assets directly? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.