Exchange hit with tech delay

Delivery of share prices on the NZX’s public website nzx.com was delayed by about an hour this morning but the exchange said the issue was not related to the return to NZ standard time from daylight saving time (DST).

Real time trading proceeded normally through sharebroker-only systems. Read Company announcements were being issued as normal.

A spokesman for the NZX said: “NZX has confirmed that prices were visible via broking firms and online trading platforms, however there was a delay in publishing prices to nzx. com until around 11am. We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. Our technical specialists are investigating the root cause to help prevent any recurrence.”

Last September, when New Zealand entered daylight saving, prices were delayed when the system had not been adjusted for the changeover.

In January, the NZX was taken to task by the Financial Markets Authority for breaching its market operator obligations in relation to its technology resources after a series of disruptive cyber attacks on the website late last year.

At the time NZX chief executive Mark Peterson said NZX took its market operator obligations seriously. “We acknowledge the issues that have affected our technology platforms and market participants in 2020. We also agree that improvements are required.”

For the first four days of a sustained DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack that began on August 26, NZX suspended trading on the basis that the attack did not target its trading platform.