Due to the hot search of the China Merchants Securities APP due to system failures, the digital service capabilities of securities companies have risen, and they are facing tests at any time

Financial Associated Press (Shenzhen, reporter Wu Hao) news, coincided with Shenzhen due to the epidemic pressed the "pause button", China Merchants Securities APP due to system failure also on the hot search list. In fact, in the past one or two years, it is not uncommon for brokerage APP downtime to occur, and every time an outage occurs, it will ring an alarm bell for peers.

After the noon close today, China Merchants Securities has officially responded that the problem is due to the "delay in processing transaction returns", and after stepping up repairs, the problem has been alleviated, and other functions of the system are normal. However, as of press time, the Weibo topic of "China Merchants Securities Collapsed" still broke 27 million views.

"It's relatively normal for problems to occur, but extinguishing fires is more important than repairing them, testing emergency response capabilities." A veteran industry insider said. Another brokerage network financial person also said that securities companies should strengthen relevant emergency plans, system testing, monitoring system construction and other aspects.

It is worth noting that the current APP has become the core carrier of the digital business of securities companies, and its security, stability, professionalism, high efficiency and other aspects are also closely bound with the digital service capabilities of securities companies.

Just as the so-called "no monitoring, no operation and maintenance", the construction of a complete monitoring system can minimize the impact of information system abnormalities on the business, and improve the efficiency and operation and maintenance level. This may also be a proposition that needs to be valued and considered by the industry through today's single case.

At the same time, in recent years, documents related to network security in the securities and futures industry have been introduced, which is also elevating the industry's network security protection work to an unprecedented height.

The China Merchants Securities APP system malfunctioned

After the opening of the market early on March 14, the China Merchants Securities APP was reported by investors that there was a problem with the server, not only could not see the historical order/transaction situation, but the customer reacted that the situation was mainly "the transaction page cannot be traded, and the order cannot be withdrawn after the pending order". What is the actual situation?

In this regard, China Merchants Securities made a formal response after the noon close, the first is in response to customer feedback "can not be traded", the company said that all trading orders in the centralized trading system have been transmitted to the exchange system in real time, but due to the delay in the processing of transaction returns, some customers did not receive transaction return information in time on the client. The relevant person in charge of China Merchants Securities further explained that the system failure affected the submission of the transaction return, but it did not affect the transaction.

The second is about the withdrawal of orders, for which the company said that the withdrawal transaction is indeed affected, "the inconvenience caused to customers, the company is deeply sorry." At present, the company is stepping up repairs, the problem has been alleviated, and other functions of the system are normal."

The reporter browsed Sina Weibo, as of press time, the topic of "China Merchants Securities Collapsed" has exceeded 27 million, and there are more than 3,000 discussion posts, which are full of netizens' dissatisfaction with the system failure and questions about the timeliness of system recovery.

However, a brokerage network financial source said that the repair of the middle and back office system is not as simple as everyone generally thinks, and some of the repair actions also involve the restart of the relevant system, which is very difficult to achieve in the intraday.

The above-mentioned senior industry source also said that the incident exposed the lack of internal emergency management processes of some securities companies. In addition, he said that from the perspective of customer structure, China Merchants Securities has a large number of customers from WeChat, "If these people can't trade, some customer companies may still be difficult to get in touch, and doing a good job of customer contact is an important task after the incident, and it also tests the emergency response of sales departments around the world." He believes that the management problems for Internet customers in the whole securities industry, or the attention of the regulatory authorities in the future, are also the propositions that securities companies should think about and should also pay attention to.

This incident reflects that securities companies should also strengthen the relevant emergency plans, "such as building a dual-machine hot standby server, realizing multi-line, distributed deployment, etc." The above-mentioned person also believes that the information technology team should be more cautious when doing system testing, especially stress testing.

There is no monitoring, no operation and maintenance, and the industry's network security regulations are becoming more and more perfect

It is true that in recent years, securities companies have accelerated their pace and deepened their digital transformation, but through today's sudden case, what should be paid more attention to is the shortcomings of infrastructure construction that cannot be ignored behind it.

"No monitoring, no operation and maintenance". Monitoring systems are the foundation of operations and an important source of data for continuous improvement of operations. In the article "Practical Sharing of Information System Monitoring and Management of Securities Companies" published in the "Frontiers of Trading Technology" of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, it is said that the construction of a complete monitoring system can minimize the impact of information system abnormalities on business and improve the efficiency and operation and maintenance level of operation and maintenance.

In 2013, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued the Code for the Management of operation and maintenance of information systems in the securities and futures industry, which clearly pointed out that "securities and futures institutions should take monitoring measures, equipped with monitoring and alarm tools, and monitor key objects that affect the normal operation of the information system, including the computer room environment, network, communication lines, hosts, storage, databases, application systems related to core trading business, security equipment, etc." Alarm methods may include sound and light, telephone, text message, mail and so on. At the same time, the monitoring content of each monitoring object, the log storage of the monitoring system, and the evaluation of the monitoring log are also standardized.

In 2020, in the newly revised Measures for the Reporting and Investigation of Information Security Incidents in the Securities and Futures Industry, "larger incidents" are defined, "the centralized trading system of securities companies, futures companies or online trading systems are all interrupted or partially interrupted, affecting the cumulative trading time of more than 5 minutes; the third-party depository system and margin system are completely or partially stopped, affecting the business time for more than 30 minutes". From this point of view, the recovery time of the fault directly determines the level of the information security incident, which in turn affects the classification evaluation score of the securities company.

In recent years, relevant documents such as the Basic Requirements for Graded Protection of Network Security in the Securities and Futures Industry, the Requirements for the Evaluation of Graded Protection of Network Security in the Securities and Futures Industry, and the Guidelines for the Graded Protection of Network Security in the Securities and Futures Industry (Draft for Solicitation of Comments) have been successively released, which shows that regulators attach great importance to the network security of the securities and futures industry, as well as the active promotion and gradual refinement of the graded protection of network security.

However, people in related industries also pointed out that there are still many pain points to be solved in the current system monitoring of securities companies. For example, the monitoring items are incomplete, there are monitoring blind spots, lack of monitoring of key business indicators, lack of monitoring and display based on business flow, incomplete monitoring management process, lack of full life cycle management of system monitoring, and a variety of monitoring systems.

The foundation of digital transformation of brokers is not yet solid enough

From the perspective of the industry as a whole, the current digital transformation and construction has become a new strategic highland for the future development of securities companies, focusing on how to lay resources, build teams, and lay foundations, and all securities companies are actively embarking. Especially in terms of mobile APP construction, according to the statistics of the Boston Consulting Group, as of 2021, there are a total of 124 self-operated APPS of securities companies, accounting for 95% of the total number of institutions, which has essentially become the core carrier of securities companies to carry out digital business.

Overall, the industry's awareness of digital transformation has initially been established, but there are still problems such as the lack of a solid digital foundation. An information technology source from a securities company interviewed said that it is mainly reflected in the imperfect data system, the weak key infrastructure such as the number of warehouses, and the lack of flexibility in the system architecture.

At the same time, the Boston Consulting Group pointed out in the report "The Way to Break the Digital Transformation of Securities Companies" that although domestic securities companies have never stopped expanding the pace of scientific and technological talents in recent years, compared with the leading international investment banks, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the construction of scientific and technological talents. At present, the domestic business scale is relatively considerable, and the brokerage institutions that are at the forefront of digital transformation, the proportion of scientific and technological talents is basically 10%-12%, while the proportion of leading international investment banks in the same period is basically maintained at about 25%, and the gap is still obvious.