Australia's largest stock exchange has announced plans to become the first global financial marketplace to adopt blockchain technology for its core clearing and settlement operations. The Australian S
Australia's largest stock exchange has announced plans to become the first global financial marketplace to adopt blockchain technology for its core clearing and settlement operations. The Australian Securities Exchange will overhaul its existing infrastructure by migrating from CHESS—the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System—to a modern blockchain platform.
While ASX has praised CHESS as a dependable system serving the market well, the exchange recognized the strategic advantage of implementing next-generation technology. Since early 2016, ASX has partnered with Brooklyn-based Digital Asset Holdings to build and test this new infrastructure. Following rigorous development and validation, the platform has now cleared two rounds of independent security audits.
"The rigorous testing validates ASX's belief in the application's functional capabilities, system capacity, security posture, and operational resilience," the exchange stated in its announcement. The migration timeline points to March 2018 for the switchover.
ASX's leadership enthusiastically backs the initiative. Managing Director and Chief Executive Dominic Stevens emphasized that the transition would "position Australia as a leader in financial market innovation." Meanwhile, Blythe Masters, who leads Digital Asset Holdings, called the development "the first genuine demonstration that this technology can fulfill its promise." She continued: "Together with ASX, we've proven that the technology is not just viable—it can power the most demanding financial systems."
The project reflects extensive industry engagement. ASX conducted more than 80 presentations on blockchain solutions to over 500 market participants and hosted 60-plus educational sessions on the CHESS replacement platform with representatives from 100 international financial institutions. The exchange consulted stakeholders across multiple categories: institutional clients, registry providers, technology companies, rival exchanges, and sector bodies.
The implications are substantial. Blockchain-based clearing promises to compress settlement timelines, strengthen transaction security, and reduce operational expenses by eliminating intermediaries from the workflow. Goldman Sachs has calculated that blockchain adoption for equities markets could generate $6 billion in annual cost savings globally.
