Transaction of shares at Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) was disrupted for two hours on Wednesday after the authority failed to disseminate information about a glitch in the system.

As a result, the market transaction stood at a mere Rs175.37 million during intraday trading.

The stock trading interface encountered a problem right from the start of the trading hour that begins at 11am and lasted for two hours. “Investors were unable to post their purchase and sales order during the two hour period,” said a stockbroker.

Issuing a press release, Nepse however clarified that the disruption took place due to the problem in Nepse data centre and fiber connections. “Although the software was working smoothly, the system failed to disseminate related information regarding the problem,” Nepse Spokesperson Murahari Parajuli said.

 The problem in the Nepse system comes just after the fully automated online trading system was launched the day before by the stock trading authority.

Nepse brought into operation the Nepse Online Trading System along with the existing Computerised Trading System on Tuesday.

Currently, more than 1.5 million investors are engaged in shares transaction at the country’s only secondary market. These investors are holding stocks worth over Rs1,419 billion. However, problems with the Nepse software have been plaguing investors time after time.

The newly enforced fully automated online system enables investors to post their purchase and sales order online. This new system is expected to put immense stress on Nepse’s trading platform.

To identify and prevent such problems, the Securities Board of Nepal, had recently asked Nepse to conduct a system audit every two years. Through the Stocks Listing and Transaction Regulation 2018, the sector’s regulator wants Nepse to continually monitor and update their systems to prevent any problems that may arise in the future.

“However, investors have yet to realise the effectiveness of the regulation, making them face frequent hurdles in materialising the value for their assets,” the stockbroker said.

With this latest problem that affected trading for two hours, the secondary market lost 5.54 points to close at 1,198.77 points on Wednesday. Except for the sub-indices of finance companies and hotels, the remaining nine trading groups landed in the red, disappointing the concerned investors.