KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) is still in the process of installing a brand new trading system acquired from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) for $2.85 million about two years ago, but the sources in the PSX said that it needs more time to start trading.
Former Managing Director Richard Morin had acquired this system, however, the system is still being installed and mock trading is being done on it, the sources claimed. This new trading system will also integrate Pakistani stocks with Shenzhen Stock Exchange and others in Asian markets, the source claimed.
“This new system was to be operational by the end of 2020 but delayed several times owing to some technical fault,” a broker said.
According to a PSX Chief Executive Officer (CEO), “this system will be fully operational from next month with further improved security features to better safeguard investors’ data and integrate the national bourse with regional and international stock markets.”
According to a local newspaper, the MD CEO said that we are set to make the new trading system fully operational by mid of this year (June-July 2021).” “The new trading system has entered into the final testing phase. The mock sessions have helped in detecting and removing technical issues in the new system.”
The management of the PSX has been claiming that the new system works at high speed that it concludes trading session (the full-session calculations and compilation of trading data at the end of the session) in just 30 seconds or less than one minute, compared to 30 minutes that are required in the system in place (KATS/Karachi Automated Trading System) at present.
The new trading system carries a built-in surveillance system, the management claimed, which the existing trading platform KATS lacks. “The stock market does surveillance manually through acquiring data from KATS,” he said.
The new system would fully replace KATS which has remained in operations since 1997. The PSX managements have kept updating KATS as and when needed from time to time. PSX was made operational through remote working (work from home) through KATS throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, as we did not close the market for a single day. The system, however, has become outdated and needs to be replaced now.
