The Tokyo Stock Exchange has replaced its Fujitsu
trading system with a product from Hitachi to guard against future
systems failings.
The move comes after capacity problems in January forced the
Exchange to cut short trading on several days when the number of
trades executed neared system capacity.
The Hitachi system can process five million trades a day, which
is the same number as the newly upgraded Fujitsu system can handle,
but an exchange spokesman said the replacement system could be more
easily expanded to meet future surges in demand.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange's decision replace the Fujitsu system
follows not just last month's capacity problems but also a crash in
November 2005 which stopped trading in stocks and bonds for more
than four hours. The crash was the most serious incident at the
exchange since it switched from floor trading to an electronic
trading platform in 1999.
Hitachi was brought in within a week of a new IT director taking
over. Yoshinori Suzuki joined the Tokyo Stock Exchange from
telecoms company NTT with a brief to revive investor confidence in
the exchange's technology infrastructure. He has been given an IT
budget that is twice that of his predecessor.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange is lagging behind other international
exchanges in systems development. The London Stock Exchange and the
New York Stock Exchange have both been building in spare trading
capacity in the past year.
The London Stock Exchange has undertaken three capacity
upgrades, the most recent in October last year, as part of a
four-year technology programme which will culminate next year with
the launch of a new trading platform.