The RBA's latest assessment covered four ASX facilities that most investors never see but rely on every day; here is what each one does, and where the RBA found gaps.

Four facilities. Four areas where at least one of them only "partly observed" the standards. One Assistant Governor saying that "ASX is still not meeting the RBA's expectations in several important areas".

Those are the headline elements of the Reserve Bank of Australia's Assessment of ASX Clearing and Settlement Facilities, released on 23 September 2026. The findings drew attention, but the names of the facilities involved (ASX Clear, ASX Clear (Futures), ASX Settlement and Austraclear) can read like an alphabet soup to anyone outside the industry. This explainer steps back to describe what each of these entities does, why the RBA oversees them, and how the assessment's findings map onto them.

First principles: clearing versus settlement

When an investor buys shares, the trade on the exchange is agreed in a fraction of a second. But agreeing a trade is not the same as completing it. Two further steps follow.

Clearing is the process of working out and managing the obligations that arise from a trade: who owes what to whom, and how to manage the risk that one side fails to deliver before the trade is completed. In many markets, a central counterparty (CCP) steps into the middle of each trade, becoming the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer. That means participants face the CCP rather than each other, and the CCP manages the credit risk, usually by collecting collateral known as margin and maintaining default resources.

Settlement is the final step, when securities are delivered to the buyer and money to the seller. A well-designed settlement system ensures one only happens if the other does, an arrangement generally known as delivery versus payment.

Because these processes sit at the centre of financial markets, a failure can spread quickly from one institution to many. That is why central banks and regulators apply demanding standards to the facilities that perform them. In Australia, the RBA assesses clearing and settlement facilities against financial stability standards aligned with international principles for financial market infrastructures.

The four facilities, one by one

In general terms, the four ASX entities covered by the RBA's assessment play these roles:

  • ASX Clear is the central counterparty for trades in ASX-listed cash equities and related equity derivatives. When shares change hands on the ASX market, ASX Clear stands between the two sides and manages the risk that one of them fails before the trade is settled.
  • ASX Clear (Futures) performs the central counterparty role for futures and options on futures, including interest rate and other derivatives. These markets are used heavily by banks, fund managers and other institutions to manage risk.
  • ASX Settlement is the securities settlement facility for ASX-listed securities. It operates CHESS, the system through which share trades are settled and ownership is recorded.
  • Austraclear is a settlement facility for debt securities, such as government and corporate bonds and money market instruments. It is a core part of the plumbing for Australia's wholesale debt markets, where large sums move between institutions.

Taken together, these facilities touch almost every corner of Australia's capital markets: shares, derivatives and debt. Anyone with a superannuation fund invested in listed companies or bonds is indirectly relying on them.

Where the RBA found gaps

The RBA found that one or more of the four facilities only "partly observed" the relevant standards in four areas:

  • Governance, which concerns how the facilities are directed and overseen, including accountability and decision-making.
  • Framework for Comprehensive Management of Risks, which concerns whether there is a coherent approach to identifying, measuring and managing all of the risks a facility faces.
  • Credit Risk, which concerns how a facility manages exposure to participants that may fail to meet their obligations, a core concern for central counterparties in particular.
  • Operational Risk, which concerns the reliability of systems, processes and people, and the ability to recover when something goes wrong.

That does not mean every facility fell short on every standard. The finding is that one or more facilities only partly observed each of these four standards.

The operational risk story has a specific backdrop. In December 2024, ASX experienced a CHESS batch settlement incident, affecting the process used to settle trades in ASX-listed securities. Since then, ASX has strengthened its resourcing and contingency arrangements, and the RBA has upgraded ASX Clear and ASX Settlement from "not observed" to "partly observed" on Operational Risk. That is an improvement from the lowest rating, but still short of full observance.

Why the RBA's view matters, and what comes next

Brad Jones, the RBA's Assistant Governor (Financial System), summarised the overall picture: "ASX is still not meeting the RBA's expectations in several important areas". For facilities of this importance, "partly observed" is not a comfortable place to be.

The RBA has, however, identified a potential route forward. It sees ASX's Transformation Portfolio, which spans governance, capability, culture and risk management, as a potential pathway to meeting the expected standards. That fits the nature of the gaps: several of the areas rated "partly observed", such as governance and the overall risk framework, are organisation-wide matters rather than issues confined to a single system.

For readers trying to follow the story, some questions may help:

  • Which of the four facilities improve their ratings in future assessments?
  • Does the Credit Risk finding, which is particularly relevant to central counterparties, change over time?
  • Does operational resilience at ASX Settlement and CHESS continue to improve after the December 2024 incident?
  • How does ASX report progress on its Transformation Portfolio?

The assessment also fits within the RBA's broader oversight of financial infrastructure. In June 2026 the Payments System Board approved the RBA's assessment of RITS, Australia's real-time gross settlement system, against international principles.

The bottom line

ASX Clear, ASX Clear (Futures), ASX Settlement and Austraclear are the machinery that turns trades in shares, derivatives and bonds into completed transactions. The RBA's latest assessment finds that one or more of them only partly observes standards on governance, risk management, credit risk and operational risk, with some improvement since the December 2024 CHESS incident. The four names may be unfamiliar, but their reliability matters to the whole financial system, which is why the RBA is watching them closely.