Dhaka Stock Exchange sitting with vendor NASDAQ over software glitch

Dhaka Stock Exchange will be sitting with the vendor of the software that runs its trading floor and other software companies over an apparent glitch in its servers.

Trading was put on hold for four hours on Sunday and two hours on Monday after the software failed at the premier bourse.

It was procured from international vendor NASDAQ in December last year at a cost of Tk 935.8 million.

NASDAQ, which started as a US-based equities exchange, has expanded to become a diversified worldwide financial technology, trading and information services provider to the capital markets over the last 34 years.

On every trading day at DSE, brokers update information on trading and matured shares to the main server. However, the server failed to coordinate the data on both the days, putting trading to a halt.

DSE official Nizam U Ahmed headed the project to procure the software to automate the bourse and open trade of derivative products, commodity and ETF Funds.

He told bdnews24.com: “We will sit with the vendor and other software companies to find out the cause of the server glitch after the trading ends.”

Ahmed added they never had such major problems before but admitted they were facing problems after the new software was installed.

“We were facing slow response from the server at the start and end of each trading day.”

“Our vendors were working on it. In the initial attempts, some speed was gained. But after four CPOs were integrated, we faced problems in the database also.”

He said the only other major incident they had in the past was 70 brokers not being able to trade for 14 minutes.

The DSE official said disruptions in trade over technical issues not only caused losses for investors but also sent ‘wrong signals’ abroad.

Ruhul Kabir Akand, an investor, went on to demand an investigation headed by a former Supreme Court judge into the DSE software failure.

“Investors spend money to trade in the house. No trade leads to financial losses.

“And those who have taken credit have to pay interest everyday no matter whether the trade was on or off,” Ahmed added.

Another investor, Fahim Hossain, said, “For the last month, since trading hiked, the software slows down in the last half an hour of trading.

“It takes a long time to complete each trade — this is a big problem for investors.”