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Bond and currency dealers baulk at the thought of joining back office
While an official rule allows only 10% staff in office on any working day, trading typically requires dealer presence on the floor. And banking is an essential service
With lockdown restrictions getting lifted, bond and currency market dealers are being asked to report back, but in batches.
While there is an official rule that only 10 per cent staff can be present in office on any working day, trading typically requires dealer presence on the floor. And banking falls under essential services.
However, modern technology and web-based platforms have ensured that dealers can work from anywhere if they have a good internet connection. However, such a system is not as efficient for tick-by-tick trading that a location-based dedicated terminal can offer. These terminals, again, are very costly.
“For now, there is no problem, the market hours are curtailed, people are not taking long positions, the market is thin. However, if others start availing the terminals from office, we will have to move to dedicated fixed terminals as well,” said a senior currency dealer with a foreign bank.
But that plan will meet stiff resistance from dealers themselves.
“There is an expectation of a second wave of Covid infections. Nobody wants to go back to office in this environment,” said a bond trader requesting anonymity.
The head of treasury in the same company said there is a robust business continuity plan, and the whole team will soon be divided in batches and traders will be called twice a week.
“There is a health emergency, agreed, but we need to move towards normalisation as well. The markets have not been closed, and if the markets hours are restored back to the normal hours, working from home won’t be possible for everyone,” said the treasury head who maintained that even during the lockdown, he came to office regularly.
It is true that in most cases, heads of treasuries and senior traders have attended their offices on a regular basis, rotating their presence as much as possible. The mid-level and junior traders have worked from home using the platforms installed on their company-provided laptops by the IT systems. Now these junior traders will be asked to attend back once the RBI normalises the market hours.
The bond and currency markets now work between 10 am and 2 pm, There is no clarity yet when the RBI is going to restore back the trading hours, but traders hope that the central bank is not in a hurry.
“The back-office people are completely working from home, except a few senior guys who are working on a rotation basis. It is not a big problem for bond traders because NDS-OM platform (RBI's bond trading platform) is web-based,” said a bond dealer.
The situation is a bit complicated for the currency dealers, and now that the RBI has allowed Indian banks to access the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) markets, though offshore or from GIFT City, coordination for currency trading could get cumbersome.
It is a complete work from home basis for currency consultants though. Many of them have left Mumbai and are working from their home locations, such as Kolkata, Jaipur etc. They are not in a hurry to come back to Mumbai either.
“Ours is a consulting business that can be done over phone, or through video conference. I don’t think anybody would want to have face to face meetings after this health crisis, but there are always those who won’t give you work without meeting you in person. I have decided to tell them we don’t need your mandate if you insist on such face to face meetings,” said the managing director of a Mumbai-based currency consultancy firm, on a call from another city.
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