Statement on the January 3 Trading Halt

The Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE or Exchange) would like to provide the market with updates on the findings that caused the Exchange to halt trading on January 3, 2024, from 9:32 a.m. to 11:55 a.m.

The technical problem encountered was the inability of at least one-third (1/3) of the trading participants (TPS) to connect to PSE’s front-end order management system (FEOMS) and for some of these TPs, the inability to send orders to the trading system. The FEOMS sends buy and sell orders for processing to the trading system.

The underlying cause of the aforementioned problem was in relation to the mobile trading application and its process of authenticating all accounts, including the inactive ones that have not accessed their accounts or registered any trading activity. This happened in one of the four silos in the FEOMS, which experienced stalled processes given the iterative authentication steps.

The Exchange and the FEOMS developer have implemented a design optimization on the mobile trading application and are diligently working on further enhancements for deployment to prevent a recurrence of the issue.

PSE remains steadfast in its commitment to engage with all stakeholders and service providers towards continuously improving and future-proofing its products, systems, and services for the investing public.