Technical issues shut down Australian Stock Exchange after country signs historic trade deal
A technical glitch shut down the Australian Securities Exchange for most of the day on Monday.
The software issue hit the ASX as a new trading system for its equity market was introduced following over a year of tests by ASX and its technology provider, Nasdaq.
Trading was paused mid-morning and is set to re-open at 10am Australian time tomorrow after the software issues are solved.
The ASX has apologised for the disruption.
It said in a statement: “What happened today does not meet the high standards of operations and system reliability that we set ourselves, and that our customers should rightly expect of us. We apologise for the disruption."
The markets had previously been at an eight-month high.
It came as the country became one of 15 Asia-Pacific nations to sign up to one of the biggest trade deals in history.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership signed on Sunday sets out to reduce trade barriers and includes China, Japan and South Korea.
By 2030, the deal could add nearly $200 billion to the global economy every year.
It is not the first time a stock exchange has been taken down by a technical problem in recent months - on October 1 Japan's exchanges, including the Nikkei 225 index, were forced to close due to a software issue.
