Pakistan Stock Exchange Launches New Trading System

KARACHI: Pakistan stock exchange (PSX) has launched a new trading system, which was purchased from Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) of China.

The system is deployed on state-of-the-art, robust, and advanced servers in house to meet and exceed the trading needs of psx and its ecosystem. The additional benefit of the NTS is system-readiness for new products and additions, said PSX release on Thursday.

At the outset, it is important to note that the SZSE NTS is working exactly as per specifications. The processing speed of the system held true in the live environment. Trading activity continued and over 580 million shares traded in the market on this day.

As is common with any major technological transition, teething issues are experienced. Prior to the deployment, eighteen (18) mock trading sessions were held for all brokers. All the concerns, enhancements and issues highlighted by the Broker Committee were looked into by PSX and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and as per agreement, most were catered to prior to live deployment, while some were mutually agreed to be delivered post go-live.

The decision to go live on October 25, 2021 was taken by PSX after consultation and with mutual agreement of the Pakistan Stock Brokers Association, the Broker coordination committee, other leading brokerage houses and SECP.

Some issues, material and non-material, have been highlighted by brokers since NTS has gone live. The issues pertain primarily to the Jade Trading Terminal (JTT) developed by a local vendor upon brokers’ demand. In most markets, the front-end trading terminals are developed by brokers themselves as per their requirements.

At present, the material issues being faced by brokers in JTT include slow feed, delays in updation of trade and disconnection.

Currently, PSX IT teams are working constantly on addressing the concerns and issues in JTT that connect to the NTS. RMGS issue was resolved on Monday.

The slow feed issue has been mostly resolved and the changes implemented before market open on Thursday. We expect the disconnection issue to be resolved on Friday.

The vendor and PSX team are working on the resolution of delays in updation of trade logs and expect to implement some changes on Friday and the rest before market open on next Monday.

PSX and the local vendor are working 24X7, with the full support of SZSE, to resolve the remaining issues in JTT and we expect the trading experience to continue to improve.