Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) is most likely to miss the deadline to roll out full-fledged online trading system, as the vendor, which is supplying software to the stock market operator, is yet to complete its work.

Nepse, the operator of the stock market, had earlier said the online trading system would come into operation by November 7. But this announcement was made by its outgoing general manager Sitaram Thapaliya haphazardly, without making any preparation, a source said on condition of anonymity.

Thapaliya, who stepped down from the post of general manager on July 8 after completing his tenure, had even pledged to conduct trial run of the fully automated trading system in mid-August.

Nepse has hired YCO, a software company, to introduce online trading system in Nepal. It began its work seven months ago. But till date not even a third of the work has been completed, said the source.

The software development company has divided its work into 18 modules.

“All these modules should have been approved by Nepse within mid-September,” said the source. “But so far only 12 modules related to internal control system, such as listings, matching engine and index management, have been submitted. Of these, only five have been approved by Nepse.” However, no progress has been made on the live trading module till date, the source added.

Following the implementation of fully automated system, stock investors will be able to post ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ orders and obtain related information using their computers, tablets and smartphones. This will reduce stock investors’ dependency on stockbrokers.

At present, stock trading in the country is semi-automated, under which stocks are traded electronically via stockbrokers. The rest of the work has to be performed manually.

After the proposed automation system is introduced, investors will not have to get in touch with their stockbrokers every day to post ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ orders.

Nepse’s agreement with YCO is expiring in mid-June 2018. As per the vendor, stock investors may have to wait until mid-January to use the interface for fully automated stock trading.