Assessment of ASX Clearing and Settlement Facilities – September 2026 Executive Summary
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has carried out its annual assessment of the ASX clearing and settlement (CS) facilities over the period 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. During the year there have been significant shifts in ASX’s transformation plans and governance arrangements that have the potential to result in meaningful change. However, as at the close of this assessment period, ASX is still not meeting the RBA’s expectations in several important areas, including governance, operational resilience and risk management. ASX must deliver sustained improvements in these areas through its transformation, without compromising the safe and reliable operation of its critical infrastructure.
The ASIC Inquiry into ASX Group confirmed the existence of longstanding and deeply embedded shortcomings across ASX, consistent with themes identified in previous RBA assessments. These shortcomings include ASX compromising the resilience of its critical market infrastructure in pursuit of high shareholder returns. The ASIC Inquiry concluded that barriers in ASX’s governance, capability and culture required a fundamental reset. ASX subsequently committed to a package of actions, including a strategic reset of its Accelerate program. The resulting ASX Transformation Portfolio is intended to address these underlying issues. It is imperative that the transformation delivers sustained improvements in ASX’s governance, capability, culture and risk management.
ASX strengthened the resilience of CHESS and safely delivered CHESS Replacement Release 1 during the assessment period. The RBA has upgraded ASX Clear and ASX Settlement from not observed to partly observed against the Operational Risk Standard. The upgrade follows specific improvements to the resourcing and contingency arrangements supporting CHESS that address the most serious deficiencies identified following the December 2024 CHESS batch settlement incident. The upgrade should not be seen as an indication of any broader improvement in ASX’s management of operational risk. The partly observed ratings reflect that weaknesses remain across the CS facilities and that further uplift is required, including in arrangements to maintain critical services during prolonged disruptions.
The RBA has long identified that ASX’s governance arrangements have not given sufficient priority to the interests of the CS facilities. In recent months, ASX has made changes aimed at improving the independence of the CS Boards and committed to strengthening the CS facilities’ control over their resources, finances and use of intragroup services. The RBA supports the general direction of these changes, but it is too early to assess whether they will translate in practice to a strengthening of decision-making in the interests of the CS facilities. Given this, the RBA has assessed that ASX continues to partly observe the Governance Standard.
ASX progressed initiatives to strengthen financial risk management during the assessment period. However, issues identified during the period show that persistent shortcomings remain in the implementation and control of ASX’s risk models and data. ASX must embed improvements to its data controls, model governance and review frameworks so that errors are prevented or identified and corrected promptly.
During the next assessment period, the RBA will focus on:
- governance and independence of the CS facilities
- continuity of critical services, including during operational disruptions
- financial risk models, data and controls
- ASX’s transformation.