SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Trading in the Singapore securities market will resume on Friday after the fourth major interruption on the exchange in the past two years, piling pressure on CEO Loh Boon Chye as he tries to rejuvenate a bourse facing stiff competition in the region.
The Singapore Exchange Ltd said securities trading was suspended just before midday local time on Thursday due to duplicate trade confirmation messages being generated. After having to delay planned resumptions twice, the exchange closed the market for the rest of the day.
The latest interruption adds to challenges faced by Chief Executive Loh, as the SGX battles lacklustre securities trading volumes and tries to improve scrutiny on trading activities following a penny stock crash in 2013.
"We sincerely apologise for the market disruption. Our recovery time has to be better and we must minimise downtime for market participants," Loh said in a statement.
The exchange said challenges in reconciling the missing and duplicate messages resulted in a longer process than expected.
While Singapore is the leading venue in Asia for foreign exchange trading and has seen strong growth as a derivatives centre, the average value of shares traded on its stock exchange each day is less than that of Thailand's bourse and trails far behind rivals in Hong Kong and Tokyo.
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The SGX has suffered technical troubles in the past, including in August last year, when trading on the derivatives market was temporarily suspended.
The exchange was hit by two disruptions in 2014, caused by a software error and a power failure, which led to a rebuke by the Monetary Authority of Singapore -- the city state's central bank and the SGX's regulator.
(Reporting by Marius Zaharia and Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)