The future of such settlement use cases is uncertain in light of the Accenture research that prompted the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) to drop a blockchain-based foundation for its CHESS core replacement.
The efficiency and scalability of the CHESS replacement were hampered by the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and smart contracts, the research claimed.
The review concluded that “there is a need for greater consideration of how business workflows interact with the application, ledger, and how the current design is contributing to challenges in achieving scalability, resiliency, and supportability.”
The ASX stated this morning that it is pausing the replacement of the CHESS core system in order to reevaluate the plan while being “open minded” about prospective solution ideas.
Helen Lofthouse, managing director and CEO of ASX, stated during a joint investor and analyst conference that the discussion “will definitely be open-minded about what the correct solution is.”
“I would say that we will go and examine the solution with a very open mind. The decision is being made due to our high requirements for scalability, the safe implementation, and the continued supportability, but we will remain open-minded about the best option, she added.
Lofthouse added, “We just need to be broad and very open in our thought process as we figure out what that is.
There truly isn’t an off-the-shelf solution that can fulfil the needs of the Australian market, according to her, therefore the ASX “has to be extremely wide-ranging and careful in how we look at the options,” she added.
“Our regulators hold very high standards for us. That’s quite acceptable, and we’ll keep cooperating closely with them.
As research revealed “major challenges are mostly related to the application software readiness, the complexity in the integrated solution architecture, and in project governance,” Lofthouse apologised for the “effect of the continuous delays to this project”
