ASIC announced on 24 September 2026 that it has made amendments to the trading systems and automated trading obligations in its market integrity rules for securities and futures market participants. The amendments were made by the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Securities Markets) Amendment Instrument 2026/574 and the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Futures Markets) Amendment Instrument 2026/575, registered on the Federal Register of Legislation on 17 September 2026 as F2026L01223 and F2026L01224. The instruments are made rules responding to Consultation Paper 386, not proposals open for comment.
The instruments amend the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Securities Markets) 2017 and the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Futures Markets) 2017, each authorised by the Corporations Act 2001. ASIC has modernised the trading systems obligations to reflect algorithmic trading, artificial intelligence and machine learning, aligned those obligations with IOSCO principles and other international standards on algorithmic trading, applied trading system requirements consistently to manually entered and automated orders, set more consistent standards across securities and futures participants, clarified the scope of the false or misleading rule where AI-enabled or other trading activity has the effect of creating a false or misleading appearance, and removed obligations ASIC treats as redundant or overly prescriptive.
Securities and futures market participants running automated or AI-assisted order flow will have to show how they test, monitor and govern each trading system and algorithm, including models whose behaviour changes in use. Participants that keep manually entered orders outside their automated trading controls will have to bring those orders inside the same control set. Market surveillance and compliance teams gain a wider exposure under the false or misleading rule, which now expressly reaches trading activity that has the effect of creating a false or misleading appearance. These participant controls sit alongside the anomalous order thresholds and extreme trade ranges operated by market operators.
The amended rules take effect in 2028, after ASIC extended the transition period to 18 months in response to consultation feedback. Ahead of commencement ASIC is consulting on updated Regulatory Guide 265 for securities market participants and Regulatory Guide 266 for futures market participants, which would absorb the guidance in Regulatory Guide 241 Electronic Trading so that RG 241 can be retired. Submissions on the draft guidance close at 5pm AEDT on 5 November 2026. ASIC puts the reduction in the volume of relevant guidance for securities participants at almost 60 per cent.
Licentium advises trading firms, brokers, proprietary traders and trading technology vendors on market conduct obligations across Australian, EU and UK venues. Work we undertake includes mapping algorithm testing and governance duties against the amended ASIC market integrity rules, preparing consultation submissions on RG 265 and RG 266, and drafting the control and record keeping documentation participants must hold at commencement.