Press Conference by ASO Taro, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of State for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

(Friday, October 16, 2020, 11:47 am to 11:57 am)

[Questions and answers:]

Q.

Regarding the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) system failure on October 1, it has been reported that the TSE has compiled a report and intends to present it to the FSA as early as today. If you have any thoughts on administrative actions that the Financial Services Agency could take to prevent recurrences, please let us hear them.

A.

I have heard the Japan Exchange Group and the Tokyo Stock Exchange will both be conducting thorough investigations into the cause of the failure, and we are very interested in preventing recurrences. We issued an order on Friday, October 2, requesting a report as required by the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. I believe it was on Monday the 5th that we heard from the Exchange Group that it had set up an investigation committee comprising outside directors that has since identified a memory issue as the direct cause triggering the failure, and a problem in making an automatic switchover to a backup. I am aware that an announcement was made about this, and it seems the problem behind the system failure is that of why the backup did not kick in. If the automatic switch does not work, having a backup is meaningless. I think it is important to get a full picture of the causes by continuing to look into why the system could not be restored on the same day. The Japan Exchange Group and the TSE must therefore examine, search and clear up various aspects while the FSA carries out its own robust inquiries, and we are still at that stage.