Australia should shift to a one-day settlement cycle for share transactions, or the country’s main exchange risks being left behind on the global stage and overlooked by investors as too expensive and slow.
That is the view of new ASX chief executive Anthony Attia, who is taking a more urgent approach than his predecessor Helen Lofthouse on the need for faster settlement to align the main Australian market with global peers.
The New York Stock Exchange’s Arca platform and Nasdaq are moving to 23-hour daily trading five days a week, while the US, Canada and Mexico in 2024 transitioned to T+1, when settlement occurs the day after a trade.
Europe is set to change to T+1 this time next year, while ASX remains on a trade plus two-day settlement cycle with no clear timeframe for a reduction.
“These conversations need to happen now, and not in three years, and I felt that [the Reserve Bank of Australia] and [Australian Securities and Investments Commission] were welcoming the fact that ASX wanted to be out there engaging with them and with the markets to take a joint position,” Attia said in his first interview since starting in the role on September 1.
“We can’t [afford to wait] because the cost will be much higher than if we are actually biting the bullet now.
“If there is a part of our clients that are moving towards real-time, like real-time settlement T+0, they’re going to look at the cost of trading in Australia T+2 as monstrous. T+1 is a way to bridge that gap a little bit.”
Gerard Walsh, Northern Trust’s global head of market solutions, said Australia remaining at T+2 meant there was a settlement timing mismatch and “cross-border funding and FX friction” for investors, as many markets had shifted to T+1 and were also extending trading hours.
While there is no timeframe for a shift to a zero-day settlement cycle in jurisdictions such as the US, several global exchanges have announced tokenisation initiatives.
This refers to the process of turning an asset, such as a stock, into a digital “token” that can be traded on systems that are always on and operate across borders, widening the investor base for public equities.
Attia said that he was confident the ASX could liaise with industry players such as stockbrokers on a move to T+1 while it manages the latest upgrade to its clearing and settlement system, CHESS. That comes after a former project was botched and $250 million written off.
As major equity markets look to move towards 24/7 trading – to broaden access to stocks for global retail investors trading on new platforms – Attia said it will be important for ASX to position itself for tokenisation, which he described as an “important trend”.
ASX has created a tokenisation working group that is developing a white paper to be incorporated into the exchange’s next strategic plan, he said.
Nasdaq will enable equities to trade and settle in tokenised form, through the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, in the first half of next year. The New York Stock Exchange has also announced plans to tokenise equities.
“Nasdaq and NYSE and DTCC are … attracting retail investors from Asia to US stocks,” Attia said.
ASX “should look at opportunities to attract retail investors that are not in Australia to Australian liquid blue chips and ETFs. And we should be able to retain the flow of retail investors in Australia that are interested in US stocks or global ETFs”.
ASX is also working on tokenising bonds, including government bonds, which will make it easier to move collateral between clearing houses around the world, he said.
His plans are revealed as ASIC is set to release draft guidance on Thursday on the new digital asset laws introduced by the federal government last year, which create rules for digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms.
ASIC’s proposed guidance and standards point to “the increasing role of digital assets and tokenisation, including in traditional parts of the financial system,” said Commissioner Alan Kirkland.
The RBA is consulting on how its own settlement services could support the development and growth of tokenised asset markets, which it examined in its Project Acacia.
“The US is building tokenisation into its core securities infrastructure. Australia has done the testing through Acacia. We have the banks, exchanges and financial infrastructure to compete,” said Liam Hennessy, a partner at law firm Thomsons.
“ASIC is now helping put the regulatory foundations in place. The next challenge is getting these projects into live markets for consumers’ benefit.”
Attia’s comments also came as the ASX released its latest investor study, showing that in 2026 a record 11.5 million Australian adults held investments outside traditional superannuation and their primary home, up from 10.2 million three years earlier.
Some 39 per cent of Australian adults held shares, exchange-traded funds or other listed investments. Excluding superannuation and the primary home, that put Australia ahead of comparable markets including the UK and Germany.