ASIC today released a market assessment report on the National Stock Exchange of Australia Limited (NSEAL) (REP 157).
The report covers the period between 8 March 2007 to 2 March 2008.
ASIC has concluded that NSEAL has:
- adequate arrangements for the supervision of its market in accordance with the obligations under s792A(c) of the Corporations Act 2001 (the Act); and
- sufficient resources to operate the market properly and for the required supervisory arrangements to be provided under s792A(d) of the Act.
Two agreed actions were identified directed towards the following improvements in supervisory arrangements:
- to put in place a more formal oversight role for the NSEAL compliance committee; and
- to require annual reporting to NSEAL of nominated advisers’ (NOMADs) conflicts management arrangements (NOMADs complement NSEAL supervision of listed entity continuous disclosure and other rule obligations).
The first of the above agreed actions was incorporated into this report to secure consistency with the last assessment for Bendigo Stock Exchange Limited (BSX) (Report 151: Market assessment report: Bendigo Stock Exchange Limited (REP 151)). BSX shares systems and supervisory staff with NSEAL.
Background
NSEAL is licensed to operate a market in securities and managed investment products. As at 30 June 2008, NSEAL had 13 market participants and 61 quoted securities. For the year ending 30 June 2008, 970 trades were executed through the market worth $20.7 million.
A market licensee must supervise the market in accordance with Part 7.2 of the Corporations Act 2001.
Under the Corporations Act 2001, ASIC is required to conduct an assessment of the extent to which licensed financial markets are complying with their obligations to supervise their markets. ASIC must do this at least once per year in relation to each licensee. ASIC can also assess how well a licensee is complying with its other obligations under the Corporations Act 2001.