Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) announced today (Monday) that the stabilisation period for its securities trading system, AMS/3 (Third Generation Automatic Order Matching and Execution System), has been completed.

The two-week stabilisation period, which began when AMS/3’s capacity and technology was upgraded on 28 January this year, was a prudent measure to ensure that HKEx and Stock Exchange Participants (EPs) were prepared in the unlikely event that fallback arrangements had to be triggered after the upgrade.  AMS/3 has been operating smoothly and satisfactorily so no fallback arrangements were required during the stabilisation period.

As a result of the upgrade, AMS/3 is now capable of supporting up to 5 million trades per day at its optimal performance level, up from 1.5 million before 28 January.  In addition, the system’s average response time* has been reduced to less than 0.5 seconds since the 28 January upgrade from about 2.0 seconds before the upgrade.  AMS/3 processed about 7 million orders and 700,000 trades a day over the past two weeks.

“The successful upgrade of AMS/3 would not have been possible without the support of Participants and our staff’s dedication to the project,” said HKEx Chief Executive Paul Chow.  “We thank them all for their efforts.”

“The AMS/3 upgrade, which is another example of our commitment to providing market systems that meet the needs of our market participants, has strengthened the competitiveness of our securities market,” Mr Chow added.