Trading futures on the ASX? Make sure that all information is being submitted

The Electricity Authority (Authority) is reminding all participants of their obligations under clause 13.236AA of the Electricity Industry Participation Code (Code), which relates to the provision of exchange data. This may apply to those who trade New Zealand electricity futures on the ASX.

The Authority amended the Code in September 2020 to secure access to de-anonymised trading data from exchange platforms (ie, ASX) as part of the Hedge Market Enhancements project.

This data gives the Authority a detailed view of on-exchange trading activity, helping us to better assess how market making services benefit industry participants and whether any reforms are necessary. It also supports our statutory functions of monitoring, enforcement and market facilitation.

During our ongoing monitoring of trading on the futures market, we identified gaps in the de-anonymised data received from the ASX. While the trades themselves are present, in some cases the ASX is unable to identify which participant is undertaking the activity. Our enquiries into this found that this is because the ASX identifiers are either incorrect, absent, or in the wrong place.

This makes it difficult to undertake our statutory function to monitor the market.

The ASX is currently working on a system update that will rectify how participant identifiers are captured and passed through. This change is intended to make it easier for ASX to provide the Authority with accurate participant-level trading data.

We are currently working with ASX to develop a short guidance document to help participants understand the arrangements that should be in place to support compliance. We expect to share this guidance with the market in September 2025.

Ahead of this, we encourage all participants to check that they have appropriate arrangements in place with their brokers or other service providers. Under clause 13.236AA, participants are responsible for ensuring that any party acting on their behalf enables and facilitates the provision of all the required information by the exchange to the Authority.