The Exchange received overwhelming support from the industry which included participation from clearing members, broking houses, high frequency traders, and independent software vendors. The Go-Live testing was conducted over four days from October 20 to October 23, 2009.

The Go-Live testing was conducted in an environment which mirrored the actual trading environment. Such testing enables market particpants to trade on the Exchange platform, get a feel of the Exchange systems and sort out any connectivity related issues, if any, which may crop up in a real life scenario. This Go-live test scenario also provides an opportunity to the Exchange to test and fine tune its own systems, where all the entities from the eco-system participated.

Thomas McMahon, CEO of SMX, said "We are very happy to announce that the Golive testing went off without a hitch and all systems and processes performed to our satisfaction. I would like to thank the participants for their over whelming support and for taking time off during their busy trading day, to punch orders and help us in testing the Exchange systems. This provides me with a lot of encouragment that the industry is eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Exchange."

The total of 44 traders particpated in the testing which included representatives from 16 companies. A number of remote users accessed the Exchange platform from Indonesia, Japan, India and Australia, and were able to successfully place and execute orders on SMX.

The feedback received from the market participants has been very positive and encouraging. Traders are very enthused by the functionality offered by the Exchange platform for trade execution and the in-built real time risk management features of the system.

Barry White from Patsystems, one of the ISVs connected to the Exchange platform, said: "The Exchange platform provided by SMX has proven in these Go-live tests, its ability to offer users with an uncomplicated yet sophisticated solution for trading commodity derivatives. A number of our existing and potential customers who participated in the trading were very pleased with the performance of the system and Pro-Mark functionality in these tests."

Mike Donahue, Managing Director, TransMarket Group Pte Ltd said "We are very enthusiastic about the imminent opening of SMX and are looking forward to increased access to the regional and global commodities markets during the Asian time zone."

Over the last few months, SMX has been actively promoting its membership programmes. The Exchange has received keen interest from leading international and local insitutions based in Singapore and from market participants based in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, India and Middle East.

"Our multi-product commodity derivatives exchange platform has successfully attracted a broad spectrum of leading international commodity players, as well as top financial and banking insitutions, traders and brokers from around the world. We are encouraged by the response from the global market players and are confident of building on this to create an attractive and vibrant pan-Asian exchange," Mr McMahon added.

With the succesful completion of Go-live testing, SMX has moved one more step closer to its impending launch.