Post NYSE Halt, SEBI, Exchanges Review Risk Management Systems

Sebi and stock exchanges initiate an urgent review of the overall risks management and disaster recovery systems.

A man watches Indian Indian stock market indices on a display screen on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) (Photo: AP)

With a major ‘glitch’ causing nearly four-hour trading halt at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last night, regulator Sebi and stock exchanges here have initiated an urgent review of the overall risks management and disaster recovery systems of the Indian markets.

Top officials said the systems here are already being upgraded constantly to tackle any unforeseen circumstances but it was decided to take a stock of the situation last night itself when first reports began coming in about the NYSE case.

They expressed satisfaction about the systems after this ‘urgent review’ and said nothing was found amiss. While there have been several cases of such ‘technical glitches’ hitting the stock exchanges abroad, the Indian markets have been relatively better off on this front.

Sebi has been asking the stock exchanges and other market entities to take necessary steps from time to time to assess the robustness of their systems to avoid any software-related or other technical disruptions. The regulator has also been conducting regular audit of the software systems in use to avoid any technical glitches.

Incidentally, Sebi earlier this week issued a new set of guidelines for the stock exchanges and other market infrastructure institutions to safeguard their systems, networks and databases from cyber attacks. This is the biggest outage to hit the US markets in nearly two years after trading in all Nasdaq-listed stocks remain frozen for nearly three hours in August 2013.