The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has decided to send the chief technology officer of the country’s largest stock market on forced leave pending an investigation into why the trading was halted twice in three days due to technical malfunctions.
The performance of the CTO in question, Md Ziaul Karim, came under scrutiny after trading on the Dhaka Stock Exchange floor was halted twice in consecutive weeks - first on October 24 for three hours due to “technical difficulties” and the second time on Sunday for 90 minutes due to “human error”.
On both occasions, the DSE issued a statement, apologising to the traders for their inconvenience, reports bdnews24.com.
The meeting at the stock regulator, presided by its Chairman Professor Shibli Rubayat Ul Islam, formed a five-member committee to investigate the matter.
“A meeting was convened at the BSEC to discuss this issue. The attendees were not happy with what had gone down there (at the DSE) for the last few days. The commission has already formed a probe committee to dig deeper and the authorities at the BSEC issued a forced leave for the CTO Md Ziaul Karim in the meantime,” said BSEC spokesperson Mohammad Rezaul Karim.
On Sunday, according to a media statement issued by the DSE, trading was delayed for 90 minutes as all the circuit breakers of the stock exchange were made inactive instead of the scheduled 70 before the start of the operation, which the DSE chalked up as a “human error”.
The trading was halted on October 24 for three hours due to a technical difficulty in the DSE server, according to another press release issued on the day.
Mohammad Rezaul said the probe committee will assess the technical capacity of the stock market’s server system and they were asked to report their findings within the next 30 working days.
The DSE board of directors have also asked for hiring skilled manpower on an urgent basis for the stock market’s IT department so that an efficient IT system can be developed.