ASX Rebuilds Top Team Amid CHESS Replacement Pressures
Less than a month into his role, ASX's new CEO Anthony Attia is making rapid changes to the exchange's senior leadership. Keir Barnes, a former executive at Dexus, has been appointed as the next chief financial officer, while Mark Peterson, ex-head of the New Zealand Exchange, will take on a newly created role as managing director of clearing and settlements.
The urgency behind these appointments stems from a long-running technology project aimed at replacing CHESS, ASX's 30-year-old system for handling clearing and settlement. A previous upgrade attempt dragged on for nine years before being scrapped, drawing criticism from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Reserve Bank of Australia.
The replacement of CHESS is crucial in maintaining market confidence, particularly after ASIC imposed an extra A$150 million capital charge on ASX last December. This charge ties up more equity on the exchange's balance sheet until regulators are comfortable that outage risk is falling.