INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
the financial markets fraternity is rising to the occasion in a show of its characteristic never-say-die spirit.
As soon as the stock
exchanges on Friday announced relaxations to allow work from home, big brokerages rushed to issue guidelines to facilitate their employees
to operate out of their homes, wherever possible.
They have also put up alternative facilities for the on-ground staff, in a bid to make the
ongoing social distancing drive successful.
Top brokerages told ETMarkets.com on Saturday that after the exchanges allowed those
relaxations, they have temporarily permitted employees to log on to trading systems from remote locations to put through client orders and
execute transactions.
Vijay Bhushan, President at ANMI, an association that represents 900 members, said brokerage are taking steps to
trade on behalf of clients from remote locations was a swift and appreciable response to the virus outbreak.
The sanitation of office
premises, redesigning of IT policies to meet regulatory requirements and setting up of disaster recovery sites under business contingency
plan are underway, said Sudhir Dhar, Executive Director - Head of HR at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
He said most of Motilal Oswal
employees were already working from home since March 17, except for what he called 'business-critical staff' .
The business-critical
he said.
Nikhil Kamath, CIO and Co-founder Zerodha and True Beacon, said his companies had already made necessary investments in technology
Kamath said.
Historically, a turmoil accompanying such downturns significantly reconfigures a business and often removes redundancies, he
9,000 people, have been enabled and are working seamlessly from home, while ensuring that client information and data are protected at all
platforms of Zscaler and Microsoft
holding over 1,500 online video meetings a day (up from just 30 the previous week).
Ravi Kumar, co-founder at Upstox, a discount broking
firm, said his company has pro-actively started implementing work from home policy for most of its employees for a week
month-on-month growth in the number on new demat accounts and transactions, given the online nature of the business.
Queries sent to
Sharekhan and IndiaNivesh remained unanswered as Saturday was a holiday for them.
Other brokerages said meetings with external visitors are
being called off or are being done via video conferencing
has given us the agility to continue with our operations in these challenging times
said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddav Thackeray on Friday announced a lockdown of Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Pimpri till March 31
While essential services will be in place, government offices will operate with just 25 per cent attendance
At the time of writing of this report, Maharashtra accounted for 56 out of the total 275 confirmed cases in India so far
They included singer Kanika Kapoor, who has also been booked for negligence.
NSE said the arrangement will continue till April 30 or longer
if the situation demands.
This would be the first time in history when the brokerages are being permitted to operate the trading terminals
from locations other than main or branch offices or from the office of an authorised person.
That said, stock exchanges have asked brokers
to put in place an internal policy to prevent unauthorised trading and provide a list of approved users, terminal details, segment,
certificate details and addresses of the alternate locations to the exchange.
The virus fears have rattled financial markets globally
The Philippines shut down its financial markets last week amid a surge in volatility
There has been debates in the US and also in India whether domestic stock exchanges should be shut.
Indian investors have lost Rs 44 lakh
crore in wealth since January 25 in the market turmoil triggered by the virus crisis
To curb the market free fall, Sebi on Friday stepped up and announced curbs on short positions in the F-O segment, raised margins for
non-F-O stocks in cash market and revised marketwide position limits.
Globally, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has
lowered the threshold for reporting short-selling to regulators for the next three months
Hedge funds and other investors in the region will have to give regulators more information about the bets.
France, Italy, Belgium and Spain
have introduced temporary measures to halt bets on falling shares at scores of companies.
On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an
address to the nation described social distancing as the key measure to contain the virus
He warned that the next 3-4 weeks will be crucial for the country to tackle the crisis.
