The Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) has suffered a delay in its plan to implement a full-fledged online trading system with stockbrokers facing problems upgrading the template necessary to run the new system.

On Sunday, a group of stockbrokers complained to Nepse about operating the data centre that requires upgraded software and hardware besides trained human resources. Among the 50 brokering companies, many have started using the data centre. Nepse had asked stockbrokers to get the data centre up and running by last Saturday. The bourse has planned to start mock trading of shares after stockbrokers fix the data centre.

“Although many stockbrokers have gone into group cloud to operate the data centre, a few of them are still facing problems,” said Nepse spokesperson Murahari Parajuli. According to him, a stockbroker needs to invest Rs7-20 million to upgrade their system to make it compatible with the planned fully-automated online trading system.

YCO, the vendor company, handed over the necessary software to Nepse on July 17. Nepse had planned to launch full-fledged operation after having user acceptance testing (UAT) of the new system conducted by a third party. An Indian company is conducting UAT which, according to Nepse, has reached the final stage. Nepse has envisaged starting online trading within three months after conducting UAT.

The Indian company doing UAT has almost completed document verification, system features test and resilience test, according to Nepse. Parajuli said Nepse was waiting to receive ISO certification before implementing online trading.

Priya Raj Regmi, president of the Stock Brokers Association of Nepal, said stockbrokers were almost done with the data centre. “Only a few of them are facing minor problems such as connectivity in their computers,” said Regmi, adding that the problem would be fixed soon.

According to Regmi, an estimated 10,000 share investors have received user names and passwords from their stockbrokers. The new system has been operating together with the existing system since mid-July. Nepse has asked investors to register at their stockbrokers and get new user names and passwords to operate the system.

The fully-automated trading system will allow investors to place orders online besides enabling them to carry out payment, clearing and settlement electronically. The new system can handle nearly 23,000 transactions in a millisecond compared to an estimated 150,000 orders that the current system can accept in a day.