ASX CEO Pushes for Faster T+1 Settlement, Consults Regulators

ASX Chief Executive Anthony Attia is seeking to accelerate Australia's transition to next-day settlement of share trades, he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. Attia plans to consult regulators and market participants on the matter.

Australian cash equities have operated on a T+2 settlement cycle since 2016. Attia said waiting for the full replacement of ASX's CHESS clearing and settlement system, scheduled for 2029, would be "too late." That would break the sequence ASX itself set out.

A March 2025 communique from the ASX Advisory Group stated that any T+1 go-live should occur at least 12 months after the second CHESS release and at least 18 months after a decision to switch, a timetable that pointed to 2030 at the earliest. Attia did not provide a new date.

Attia took over as CEO on September 1 after nearly three decades at Euronext, replacing Helen Lofthouse. He joined an exchange that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) hit with an A$150 million capital charge in December 2025 following an inquiry into outages and under-investment.

"We don't have any reason to keep T+3 or T+2 today," Attia said in the interview.

The inquiry panel found that ASX paid out 88% of underlying profit as dividends over five years while deferring technology upgrades. Two weeks before the panel's interim report, a December 2025 glitch halted trading in companies with price-sensitive announcements for several hours.

In June, ASX also agreed to a A$20.5 million penalty after admitting that a 2022 statement calling its earlier, blockchain-based CHESS replacement "progressing well" was misleading, according to ASIC.

The first CHESS release, covering clearing, went live in April. The second, which replaces settlement and the share register, is the stage that ASX tied to any T+1 decision. The exchange estimated in 2024 that it would cost between A$270 million and A$320 million.

Other markets are moving ahead. The US moved its stock market to one-day settlement in May 2024, and the UK, the European Union and Switzerland plan to follow on October 11, 2027. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) proposed in an April consultation paper to move its cash market to T+1 in the fourth quarter of 2027, subject to market readiness and regulatory approval. Euronext, Attia's former employer, is preparing for the European date.

Industry feedback on the T+1 whitepaper ASX published in April 2024 showed a preference for not running the T+1 switch and the second CHESS release at the same time, the exchange said in its August 2024 summary.