The deployment on TCS BaNCS for Market Infrastructure and Quartz solutions provides the ASX with a modern, high performance, scalable and resilient cloud solution
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has successfully contributed to Release 1 of ASX’s Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) program, marking an important milestone in the modernisation of Australia’s critical financial market infrastructure. This is a key step in ASX’s digital transformation journey in partnership with TCS.
CHESS is the system used to facilitate the clearing and settlement of trades in eligible financial products. It facilitates the transfer of legal title to securities through the CHESS sub-register and enables delivery-verses-payment settlement by transferring securities and cash between buyers and sellers. Release-1 of the CHESS Project delivers the new clearing component.
As part of the ASX CHESS Project, TCS implemented its flagship TCS BaNCS for Market Infrastructure and Quartz Gateway solutions. Together, they deliver a high-performance, scalable and resilient CCP clearing solution for multiple asset classes. The solution supports real-time trade novation and netting and is compliant with industry standards. It provides connectivity to multiple Australian exchanges and supports ISO 15022, ISO 20022 and FIX messaging standards. The solution is hosted in the cloud and has been benchmarked to process more than 20 million trades per day, supporting ASX’s future growth with improved resilience and scalability.
Tim Whiteley, Chief Information Officer, ASX, said “Release 1 of the CHESS Project marks a significant milestone in the modernisation of Australia’s critical market infrastructure supporting post-trade clearing and settlement services. With CHESS Release 1 in production, ASX is very proud of the outcomes achieved with TCS as our technology partner having deployed a modern, secure, resilient and scalable solution for the Australian market. Leveraging the expertise of TCS and their experience with markets infrastructure in other jurisdictions has enabled us to confidently put Release 1 into production and we are progressing with Release 2, targeted to go-live 2029.”
R Vivekanand, President BFSI Products and Platforms, TCS, said “We are proud to have partnered with ASX on their modernization strategy and the successful Go-Live of CHESS Release-1. Together, we have smoothly implemented a world class platform that sets a strong foundation to drive the future growth and development of Australian financial markets. The rich functionality and straight through processing capabilities of TCS BaNCS and Quartz establishes our next-generation platform as a leader in the post-trade landscape. We now look forward to working with ASX on a similar seamless execution in Release-2.”
ASX is delivering the CHESS Replacement Project in two releases, a staged approach developed in close consultation with industry to manage change and reduce implementation risk for critical market infrastructure systems. With the successful completion of Release-1, TCS and ASX along with industry participants have commenced work for Release-2 of the CHESS Replacement Program.
TCS BaNCS for Market Infrastructure caters to the evolving business needs of Exchanges, CCPs and CSDs, supporting their end-to-end operations across multiple asset classes, ranging from issuance, clearing, risk management, depository and registry functions, to cross-border settlement, pledge, collateral management, repo and securities lending and borrowing. It supports both omnibus and end-investor accounting along with support for multiple settlement models and settlement optimization to help manage liquidity across both securities and cash.
It is complemented by TCS’ Quartz solutions providing standards-based industry integration and the ability to provide services including decentralized settlement and tokenisation based on distributed technology. Its co-existence approach for supporting both ISO 15022 and ISO 20022 standards enables a seamless and efficient transition to ISO 20022.
TCS has been strengthening its presence in Australia for over 35 years and serves as a partner to most of the top 10 listed companies in the region. The company has operations in five locations across the country and has also been recognised among LinkedIn’s Top 25 companies to work for and as a top employer in the region by the Top Employers Institute.
