MAS reprimands SGX for lapses in two trading outages in 2014

THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has reprimanded the local bourse for lapses related to major trading outages in November and December last year.

It also placed a fee moratorium on the bourse, though it stopped short of explicitly imposing a financial penalty.

"While SGX has met its primary obligation as an exchange to maintain fair, orderly and transparent markets, it has fallen below service recovery standards on both incidents," the regulator said in a statement on Wednesday after markets closed.

It told the exchange to "improve its recovery capabilities and processes" and said that SGX was not allowed to raise fees for the securities and derivatives markets until it had completed those improvements.

SGX will also be contributing S$1 million to its own investor education fund, the MAS added.

SGX chief executive Magnus Bocker told a briefing on Wednesday that the SGX had originally planned to restructure its post-trade fees but would now shelve those plans until the moratorium is lifted.

The November market meltdown led to a trading outage of nearly three hours in the securities market on a Wednesday afternoon. The December glitch, unrelated to the November one, involved a delayed market opening that was found to be caused by a software problem.

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