The head of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Koichiro Miyahara, is stepping down due to a systemic trading failure that occurred last month.
The full-day trading halt on October 1 was the worst programmatic disruption in the history of Japan's financial system since the world's third largest stock market switched to fully electronic trading in 1999.
The exchange previously stated that the failure was the result of a hardware problem in the Arrowhead exchange trading system and the subsequent failure to switch to backup.
Miyahara will be the first CEO to step down following a series of blackouts on major exchanges in Australia, Europe and New Zealand this year.
The shutdown on October 1 happened due to the fact that Japan sought to raise the status of Tokyo as a world financial center. This glitch also stumped Fujitsu Ltd, which developed the Arrowhead exchange trading system.
Fujitsu said it is discussing internal disciplinary action, but nothing has been decided.
"The suspension of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange for an entire day significantly undermines investor confidence," the Financial Services Agency said in a statement, which noted that the exchange needs to clarify who is still responsible for such incidents.
Financial regulators conducted an on-site inspection of the exchange last month to investigate the reasons for the shutdown.
The exchange also announced that by March next year, the newly formed committee will develop new guidelines on how to resume trading after a system outage.
