NZX Receives Positive Report Card

NZX continues to receive a positive regulatory report card, with a review by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) – Te Mana Tātai Hokohoko – finding it has met its obligations while pursuing further enhancements.

The annual NZX Market Operator Obligations Review, released today, assesses how well NZX is meeting the requirements for its market operator licence. The report found NZX met all its obligations during the review period from 1 January to 31 December 2024.

FMA Director of Markets, Investors, and Reporting, John Horner, said: “NZX continues to deliver a critical service to New Zealand.

“This report shows businesses and investors can be confident NZX continues to operate in accordance with its market operator licence and is meeting its obligations.”

In particular, the review found:

• Governance arrangements continue to be appropriate and support NZX’s ability to comply with its licensed market operator obligations.
• NZX and NZ RegCo are operating well-developed frameworks and processes, and continually working to further enhance operational effectiveness and resilience.
• Continued demonstration of NZ RegCo’s operational independence, while maintaining an appropriate and effective working relationship with NZX.
• Maturity and investment in technology and risk management resources, with further enhancement in the review period providing stronger capability, resilience and security.
• Significant milestones reached in NZX projects designed to further grow NZX’s markets, improve investment choices and drive liquidity on the markets.

The report has made no adverse findings and two recommendations.

The first recommendation is to encourage NZX to continue its plans to explore and test the resiliency and dependencies of participants, including their business continuity plans, and reduce the risks posed by reliance on critical service providers within the ecosystem, where practicable and reasonable.

NZX has further enhanced the group’s crisis management framework, and successfully completed another crisis simulation event. The FMA recommends NZX continues to assess system recovery arrangements to increase its understanding and test whether further refinements are required for more extreme but plausible events.

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