Hong Kong’s exchange operator blames ‘software issues’ for chaos that brought derivatives trading to a standstill
- Trading of derivatives must resume quickly if Hong Kong’s standing as a financial hub is to escape further damage after months of street protests
- HKEX said it is working with the software vendor to resolve the issue but offered no hint as to when trading might be up and running again
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), the operator of Asia’s third-largest capital market, has blamed “software issues” for problems that led to the suspension of trading in derivatives on Thursday afternoon.
Futures and options trading had to be halted because of technical problems at 2pm, and remained frozen all afternoon.
In a statement released late on Thursday, the exchange operator said: “HKEX has now completed its preliminary investigations into the outage that caused the connectivity issues on the Hong Kong Futures Automatic Trading System.
“[We] can confirm that the issues experienced in the derivatives market were caused by software issues in the vendor supplied trading system. HKEX is currently working with the vendor to resolve this, and will update the market again in due course.”
The bourse owner offered no hint as to when trading of derivatives might resume.
The technical problems threw the market into chaos in the morning, as frantic brokers tried to contact HKEX staff to get help but found they could not get through on the busy phone line.