Key Highlights

  • CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar are named as areas of supervisory focus.
  • No new recommendations were made in the 2025/26 assessment.
  • Outstanding recommendations sit within the ASX Transformation Portfolio.
  • The assessment echoes the RBA's wider concern about operational and cyber risk.

The Reserve Bank's latest assessment of ASX's clearing and settlement facilities names CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar among its areas of supervisory focus, placing two technology programs at the centre of its oversight.

Regulatory reports often bury their most telling signals in lists. In the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) 2025/26 assessment of the ASX clearing and settlement facilities, one such list sets out where the RBA's supervisors will concentrate their attention. Two named projects appear on it: CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar.

When a supervisor singles out specific programs of work, it is telling the market where it believes the most important changes, and potentially the most important risks, lie.

What the assessment says

The relevant points from the assessment are:

  • Supervisory focus includes CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar.
  • "Cyber resilience will remain a supervisory priority".
  • "The RBA has not made new recommendations in this assessment."
  • Outstanding recommendations have been consolidated into the ASX Transformation Portfolio.

The four facilities covered are ASX Clear, ASX Clear (Futures), ASX Settlement and Austraclear. All four were rated "partly observed" on Governance, Framework for the Comprehensive Management of Risks and Operational Risk. Credit Risk was rated partly observed for the two central counterparties, ASX Clear and ASX Clear (Futures). Operational Risk was upgraded for ASX Clear and ASX Settlement, although both remain partly observed.

Why a supervisor watches big projects

Large technology programs at market infrastructure carry a particular kind of risk. The systems being changed are ones that many institutions depend on simultaneously. A clearing or settlement Facility is not like a single company's internal software: if it stumbles, the effects can reach brokers, banks, fund managers and, ultimately, their clients.

That is why the naming of CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar is significant. It places these programs alongside cyber resilience as matters the RBA intends to watch closely. The designation "Release 2" also indicates that the CHESS replacement is being delivered in stages, so supervisory attention is directed at a specific phase rather than the project as an abstract whole.

The link to the ratings

The supervisory focus makes most sense when read alongside the ratings. Operational Risk is one of the standards on which all four facilities are partly observed. Major technology change is, by its nature, an operational undertaking. How a facility designs, tests and implements new systems bears directly on its operational resilience.

Governance is another partly observed standard across all four facilities. Delivering complex programs requires clear accountability, sound decision-making and effective oversight by boards and management. The Framework for the Comprehensive Management of Risks, also partly observed, concerns how a facility identifies and manages the full range of risks it faces, including those that arise during periods of significant change.

Seen this way, CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar are not separate from the report card. They are among the practical arenas in which ASX's governance and risk management will be tested, and where improvements in ratings could, over time, be demonstrated.

The decision to make no new recommendations is closely tied to these projects. Outstanding recommendations have been consolidated into the ASX Transformation Portfolio. That suggests the RBA sees ASX's broader transformation program as the main vehicle for addressing the issues identified in previous assessments.

This approach has a logic to it. Rather than issuing a growing list of separate recommendations, the RBA can track progress through a single portfolio of work. The trade-off is that progress becomes harder to read from a single assessment. Observers may need to look across future assessments to judge whether the portfolio is delivering.

The assessment's statement that "Cyber resilience will remain a supervisory priority" applies across the facilities and sits naturally beside the project focus. New systems bring new interfaces, new dependencies and new configurations, all of which need to be secure.

The theme is consistent with the RBA's wider financial stability messaging. The October 2026 Financial Stability Review flagged operational and cyber risk and stated: "Our latest assessment is that the Australian financial system remains resilient, but there's no room for complacency." It also observed that "The principal risks are increasingly coming from abroad." Cyber threats are a clear example of a risk that does not respect borders.

Questions to watch

Several questions follow from the assessment:

  • How will progress on CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar be reflected in future ratings, particularly on operational risk and governance?
  • Will the consolidation of outstanding recommendations into the ASX Transformation Portfolio make it clearer, or harder, for outsiders to track progress?
  • How will cyber resilience be built into each project as it develops?
  • Will the operational risk upgrades for ASX Clear and ASX Settlement be followed by further movement in the next assessment?

The answers will emerge through ASX's own work and the RBA's future publications.

The bottom line

By naming CHESS Replacement Release 2 and ClearStar as areas of supervisory focus, the RBA's 2025/26 assessment has signalled where it expects the most consequential changes to ASX's clearing and settlement infrastructure to occur. Those projects sit against a backdrop of partly observed ratings on governance, comprehensive risk management and operational risk across all four facilities, a continuing priority on cyber resilience, and outstanding recommendations now consolidated into the ASX Transformation Portfolio. The listing is a statement of priority rather than a judgement on progress, and the next assessment will be the natural place to look for how things have moved.