ASX S APPROACH TO RELEASE MANAGEMENT

ASX S APPROACH TO RELEASE MANAGEMENT INTRODUCTION The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is mindful of the heightened regulatory, technical and operational challenges faced by Participants in a rapidly evolving market. ASX Trade was implemented in November 2010 as part of that change process and has delivered substantial benefits by reducing order execution latency and increasing throughput capacity. ASX s development of ASX Trade will be ongoing to ensure it continues to deliver innovative new services as customer needs evolve further. To assist Participants and other stakeholders with their planning and resource allocation and to enhance their ability to choose which ASX trade execution services to utilise ASX has prepared this document detailing its Release Management for the nature and timing of upgrades, including providing advanced notice of planned upgrades, to its cash market trading system, ASX Trade. Purpose of this Document This document details ASX s approach to managing technical releases to ASX Trade by: explaining how ASX categorises technical releases to ASX Trade and the responses available to users; including information about communications, support and test environments; and providing an overview of the schedule of planned Mandatory and Releases for ASX Trade for the next 18 months, including the first Mandatory Release in response to the requirements of the new ASIC Market Integrity Rules. The objectives of ASX s approach to Release Management are to ensure that: the impact of each technical release to ASX Trade is managed in a controlled and transparent manner; and implementation of releases and change support is achieved as efficiently as possible for all users. Please note that all release dates are subject to any necessary regulatory approvals and the successful completion of all system implementation testing. Users should also note that other enhancements may be required as a consequence of practical issues arising from the implementation of the Market Integrity Rules. 1

RELEASE MANAGEMENT APPROACH SUMMARY ASX has two broad categories of standard releases - Mandatory Releases and Releases. Mandatory Releases require Participants to amend and qualify their applications connected to ASX Trade. Releases allow Participants to choose whether or not to amend their applications to take advantage of the new functionality. Qualification will be required against the enhancements. These releases are differentiated based on whether the impact on a user connection of the release is non-backward compatible (Mandatory) or backward compatible (). ASX plans to implement no more than two Mandatory Releases per calendar year, in the second and fourth quarters. The only exceptions to this will be releases mandated by a regulator or regulatory obligation, or to fix a critical production fault. ASX will provide at least 90 days notice ahead of a Mandatory or Release. ASX may implement multiple Releases or upgrades to existing enhancement code during the year but will avoid conflicting with the implementation of a Mandatory Release. ASX will not implement any release other than a Critical Correction during the change freeze period extending from 15 December until 15 January (unless required to do otherwise by a regulator or regulatory obligation). ASX aims to give users certainty on Mandatory Releases while allowing them, to the greatest extent possible, to choose which Release to implement and when. This will support efficient resource allocation and business prioritisation for users, while delivering ASX technical innovations to those sections of the market that value them most highly. RELEASE CATEGORIES Mandatory Release A Mandatory Release will require all users to review and potentially amend their applications that directly connect to ASX Trade. ASX will require qualification of each application either in entirety or to capture the scope of the mandatory change. A Mandatory Release may comprise any change, including enhancements and corrections to the code associated with the Host, API Structure and API Content. ASX will construct each Mandatory Release in a manner designed to facilitate efficient regression testing by users. The scope of each release will differ based on the changes to be implemented, such as new product features and functionality, component changes and architectural upgrades. A Mandatory Release may contain Release components if significant efficiencies are present for users. The inclusion of an Release component in a Mandatory Release does not prevent a user from choosing not to develop to the enhancement nor will a user be required to qualify against the enhancements. Release An Release is designed to introduce incremental innovation into ASX Trade without requiring all users to upgrade all applications at a single point in time. An Release is voluntary and enables a user to prioritise its business objectives and allocate its resources as it requires. ASX intends to implement multiple Releases over the course of the year but will avoid conflicting with a Mandatory Release and the change freeze period. 2

To provide user choice for Release development, ASX will ensure that each Release only contains code changes that are isolated from the existing Host, API Structure and API code. Each release will include incremental functionality that a user can choose to utilise either at go-live, at a point in the future or not at all. This allows a user to independently control whether or when it develops its application to utilise the enhancement. A user that develops and qualifies its application to an Release will be required to qualify to mandatory changes to that code or discontinue its qualification. Any user not developing to an Release is not required to qualify its application with ASX in relation to that component of code. ASX will make a test environment available to support users that are not developing to the release to sanity test their application. Critical and Configuration Releases Critical Correction Release ASX will implement a Critical Correction Release in the highly unusual event of a critical production fault needing the immediate implementation of a change that requires users to amend their applications. Configuration Release ASX will routinely implement maintenance (including fault fixes) and improvement changes to the configuration and performance of its internal systems without notice to users. However, ASX will provide notice and information to users when it considers that a Configuration Release may impact user applications or operations. COMMUNICATIONS AND SUPPORT Communication Notification ASX will publish a quarterly update to the schedule of system upgrades included in this document, detailing the anticipated implementation windows and content for each scheduled Mandatory and Release. Documentation - Detailed documentation on the scope, technical specifications and projected timeframes for individual Mandatory and Releases will be provided by ASX no later than 90 days prior to the implementation date (unless required to do otherwise by a regulator or regulatory obligation, or to resolve a critical production issue). ASX will confirm the go-live date of each release by ASX Notice at least two weeks prior to implementation. Release Faults ASX will maintain and publish a register of the status of all known faults in each release. The register will be accessible via ASX online and will include the proposed dates by when the faults will be fixed. Release Lock-Down ASX will confirm a technical lock-down of the code in each release, including the known faults, at least 10 business days prior to implementation. Presentation ASX will host a presentation for users on the technical changes of each Mandatory and Release. The presentation may entail a distributed presentation such as a Webinar. The presentation will facilitate a question and answer session for users. 3

User Online Forum ASX will initiate and manage an online forum for each release. The forum will maintain a library of release development and other information, and will allow users to submit questions to ASX. Support ASX Market Access The ASX Market Access team is the primary user contact for each release. This includes release fault reporting, application qualification, test environment access and user technical readiness. ASX Market Access is available via telephone between 8am and 6pm (Eastern Standard Time) on business days and each enquiry that is not resolved immediately will be allocated an enquiry number for tracking. ASX Account Manager Your ASX Account Manager is your escalation point for all issues associated with a release. While Market Access remains the primary contact and will have access to all current information, your Account Manager will represent any of your concerns within ASX and may coordinate access to specialist ASX technical or business resources to assist in the resolution of outstanding issues. Test Environments ASX will ensure the availability of a test environment, including the increment release, at least 90 days prior to the implementation of a release. ASX will publish information about the current version of the release and planned updates to the release version on ASX online. SCHEDULE OF PLANNED RELEASES AS AT 26 MAY Schedule of Proposed Mandatory and Releases for ASX Trade* All release dates are subject to any necessary regulatory approvals and the successful completion of all implementation system testing Mandatory Releases Price Limits Q4 Mandatory Release Period 1 VolumeMatch Upgrade Q2 Mandatory Release Period 2 TBA Q4 Mandatory Release Period 3 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Release Period Release Period Releases Iceberg Orders ITCH Protocol PureMatch Kill Switch OUCH Protocol *Detailed documentation for individual Mandatory and Releases will be provided by ASX no later than 90 days prior to the implementation date (unless required to do otherwise by a regulator or regulatory obligation, or to resolve a critical production issue) 4

Table of Planned Mandatory and Releases for ASX Trade as at 26 May Date Release Functionality Release Type July Iceberg Orders September 2 nd Quarter 2 nd Quarter Description A new order type that allows a larger parent order to be broken down into a series of 'child' orders that are loaded by the system into the relevant order book, at which point they behave as any other limit order. Upon execution of each child order, the system reloads the next child order at the back of the time queue at that Iceberg's limit price and with the lowest possible latency. ITCH Protocol Ultra low latency ASX Market Information protocol for ASX Australian Liquidity Centre users, delivered utilising low latency network and server hardware. Price Limits Mandatory Functionality to limit the entry of orders onto ASX order books based on price divergence from a reference value. Price Limits are a requirements of ASIC s Market Integrity Rules. PureMatch A limit order book for trading the top-300 ASX stocks and domestic ETF products. It will operate on ASX Trade in parallel with ASX TradeMatch and utilise existing connectivity and access. Optional implementation of newly OUCH Protocol Ultra low latency order management protocol for ASX Trade, delivered utilising low latency network and server hardware. Kill Switch Kill Switch functionality provides Clearing Participants with real-time capability to electronically disconnect clients and cancel orders. Optional implementation of newly Mandatory Mandatory implementation of newly VolumeMatch Upgrade Mandatory Upgraded execution model for VolumeMatch so that VM orders will execute at the mid-point of the best bid and offer on ASX TradeMatch. Execution will be continuous as opposed to occurring in three-minute blocks. Please note that all release dates are subject to any necessary regulatory approvals and the successful completion of all system implementation testing. Users should also note that other enhancements may be required as a consequence of practical issues arising from the implementation of the Market Integrity Rules. ASX will avoid Releases conflicting with a Mandatory Release and the change freeze period. 5