New CIO for TSE

TOKYO – After weeks of attention focused on its systems, the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has created a position for a new chief information officer (CIO). Yoshinori Suzuki, currently CEO of Japanese firm NTT Data Force, will begin in that role on February 1, TSE officials say.

Suzuki will be responsible for TSE's overall IT strategy, says TSE spokesperson Mitsuo Miwa. Based in the head office, he will report to CEO Taizo Nishimuro.

A system error at TSE last November led to a trading suspension, while in December a glitch prevented a trader from cancelling an erroneous trade, resulting in losses for Mizuho Securities estimated at $330 million. Legal action against Japanese media giant Livedoor in January led to a trading suspension over fears that the TSE's clearing systems would be overloaded.

After the problems raised by limited clearing system capacity, the TSE explains that the capacity has since been increased from 4 million executions to be able to cope with 4.5 million executions. However, high trading volumes caused the TSE to put trading restrictions in place in January. According to an official statement, the trading session for Livedoor shares will be only one hour long, from 2pm to 3pm, without a morning trading session.