KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) said on Saturday it is reverting to the previous trading system as a short-term measure to provide uninterrupted services to all brokers.

The exchange replaced the 20-year-old Karachi Autom­ated Trading System with the Designated Time Schedule (DTS), which it bought from China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), on October 25. Subsequent sessions witnessed thin volumes as users complained about the absence of basic features and frequent glitches causing trade execution delays.

“The PSX IT team and the SZSE technical teams are working with the local vendor to address the issues in JTT,” the PSX statement said while referring to the front-end trading terminal that connects to the DTS.

“The PSX will initiate and organise market-wide testing before go-live,” it noted. “Once the matters concerning the front-end system are fully resolved, we expect to implement the new trading system in a few weeks,” it said.

Speaking to Dawn, Pakis­tan Stockbrokers Association Secretary General Bilal Farooq Zardi welcomed the decision to go back to the old system while IT experts fix the bugs in the DTS. “We’re in favour of the new system, but it should be adopted only when it’s fully ready,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2021