Singapore's securities market halted on bourse CEO's first anniversary

By Aradhana Aravindan

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Trading in Singapore's securities market was halted on Thursday in the fourth major interruption on the exchange in the past two years, frustrating investors and piling pressure on CEO Loh Boon Chye who completed his first year at the bourse on the same day.

The Singapore Exchange Ltd said securities trading was suspended just before midday local time due to duplicate trade confirmation messages being generated.

The exchange then scrambled to fix the problem but couldn't get trading back on track in the afternoon, twice having to delay planned resumptions.

"SGX informs that the market will not resume trading at 1600 hours and will not re-open today," it said in the latest statement after the second failed attempt to restart trading.

The latest interruption adds to challenges faced by Chief Executive Loh Boon Chye, as the SGX battles lacklustre securities trading volumes and tries to improve scrutiny on trading activities following a penny stock crash in 2013.

While Singapore is the leading venue in Asia for foreign exchange trading and has seen strong growth as a derivatives centre, the average value of shares traded on its stock exchange each day is less than that of Thailand's bourse and trails far behind rivals in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which regulates the SGX, said it was monitoring Thursday's halt closely and understands that the exchange is currently working with affected members to rectify the issue.

The bourse's derivatives market operated as normal during Thursday, but the disruption to securities market trading proved frustrating to dealers especially given the recent technical glitches.

"This kind of outage has happened far too frequently in between the last two years and this has implications (for) the confidence level of traders," Bernard Aw, a market strategist at IG Asia Pte Ltd.

"It will probably trigger a reaction from the regulator."

The SGX was hit by technical troubles in the past, including in August last year, when trading on the derivatives market was temporarily suspended.

The exchange suffered two disruptions in 2014, caused by a software error and a power failure - leading to a rebuke by the MAS, Singapore's central bank, which ordered the SGX to improve its technology risk management.

As part of its efforts to boost revenue streams, the SGX is in exclusive talks to buy London's Baltic Exchange, which has been at the heart of the global shipping industry for centuries.

(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Additional reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)