The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has ended the first half of FY2020 with AU$250 million in after-tax profit, on revenue of AU$546 million.Revenue was comprised of almost AU$114 million from listings and issuer services; AU$159 million from derivatives and OTC revenue; trading services revenue accounted for AU$125 million, AU$53.5 million came from information services and AU$43.6 million from technical services; and equity post-trade operating revenue for the six-month period totalled AU$58.6 million.Operating expenses came in at AU$114.4 million. Included in that figure, equipment costs increased by 5% to AU$16 million, with the exchange noting this was mostly due to additional licence subscriptions for cybersecurity and digital domain initiatives. “We are investing in the long-term sustainability of our business by strengthening our technology, risk and governance foundations, and upgrading our operating and service capabilities to support growth opportunities,” ASX CEO Dominic Stevens told shareholders on Thursday. Expenditure also included the continued investment in distributed ledger technology (DLT) for the ASX’s CHESS replacement project, ASX Trade platform upgrades, as well as various initiatives to “strengthen resiliency of ASX services, by continuing to contemporise platforms”. CHESS, Stevens said, is on track to open to the industry-wide test environment in July 2020 Read more:…