TOKYO (Reuters) – The Tokyo Stock Exchange said on Monday it will draw up new rules by next March on how to restart trading following a system failure, after the bourse was paralysed for an entire day earlier this month.
The exchange also said in a statement it will set up a committee with investors, members from investment banks, IT vendors, and a representative from Japan’s financial regulator to draft the new guidelines.
On Oct. 1, trading was halted due to a hardware failure in the worst-ever outage for the world’s third-largest equity market.
The trading halt tarnished the exchange’s credibility just as new prime minister Yoshihide Suga has prioritised digitalisation, and could dent Tokyo’s hopes of luring more financial services companies to Japan’s capital.
The exchange previously said the glitch was the result of a hardware problem and a subsequent failure to switch to a back-up. It caused the first full-day suspension since the exchange switched to all-electronic trading in 1999.
Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd <6702.T>, which developed the trading system, said in a separate statement on Monday the backup failed due to a software update and an outdated user manual for a memory storage system.
The company also vowed to improve its network testing and create a new committee reporting directly to the president that is responsible for quality control.
(Reporting by Stanley White, Daiki Iga, and Nobuhiro Kubo; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Bernadette Baum)
