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ASX chief executive Anthony Attia wants Australia to bring T+1 settlement for cash equities forward and plans to consult regulators and market participants. Speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, he said waiting for the full CHESS replacement, due in 2029, would be "too late"; he announced no revised date.
ASX settlement timing remains unresolved
Australian cash equities have settled on T+2 since 2016. The ASX Advisory Group's March 2025 communique said a T+1 launch should follow the second CHESS release by at least 12 months and a switch decision by at least 18 months, making 2030 the earliest indicated start.
The first CHESS release, for clearing, went live in April. The next phase replaces settlement and the share register, and ASX linked T+1 to that release. In 2024, ASX estimated the second release would cost between A$270 million and A$320 million.
Regulatory scrutiny and overseas timetables
Attia took the chief executive post on September 1, succeeding Helen Lofthouse. Euronext was his employer for nearly three decades. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) imposed an A$150 million capital charge in December 2025 after examining outages and technology under-investment. The inquiry found that, over five years, dividends absorbed 88% of ASX's underlying profit while upgrades were deferred. A fault in December 2025 halted trading for several hours in companies with price-sensitive announcements. In June, ASX agreed to a A$20.5 million penalty after ASIC said its 2022 description of the blockchain-based CHESS replacement as "progressing well" was misleading.
The US moved to one-day settlement in May 2024. The UK, the European Union and Switzerland plan a switch on October 11, 2027.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) proposed moving its cash market to T+1 in the fourth quarter of 2027, if the market is ready and regulators approve. Euronext is preparing for the European date. Feedback on ASX's April 2024 T+1 whitepaper favoured keeping the change separate from the second CHESS release, according to its August 2024 summary, as Finance Magnates reported.
The integration question
For operations teams, the unresolved design point is how T+1 would be sequenced against the second CHESS release. Which interfaces, cutover rehearsals and reconciliation processes would need to move first, and what timetable would participants be asked to meet? Attia has not supplied a new date.
Operators should ask how earlier settlement would affect cash funding, securities availability, reconciliation and reporting, and where responsibility would sit between market participants and CHESS. No implementation detail for an accelerated timetable is given, leaving those dependencies to be clarified through consultation.
