ASX : Australian regulator launches probe into stock market outage

(Reuters) - Australia's corporate regulator is investigating an outage at the country's stock exchange last week that hit trading systems and nearly wiped out an entire session, bourse operator ASX Ltd said on Monday.

The software problem a week ago halted trade just 20 minutes into the session and raised concerns about the infrastructure of country's main stock exchange.

Trading resumed the next day but other operational issues persisted, prompting the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to look into whether the ASX was compliant with its licence obligations.

Australia's central bank also voiced concern and said it was looking into whether there were underlying issues at those trading systems.

ASIC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

(Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing by Paul Simao and Sam Holmes)