The effect of the pandemic has been a mixed bag for many involved in our markets. The increase in volatility has seen a boost to trading activities and RegTech has been busy innovating to help overcome the compliance issues of remote working. With banks splitting personnel between the office, disaster recovery sites and working from home, issues have arisen that will spur technological development and system renewals.
We have seen many crises in the past, but this one is in many ways unique and I cannot recall a similar set of circumstances in my 43 years in markets. Financial crises have been global before but have originated within the financial system. Natural disasters have been localised as has dislocation due to terrorism and wars. This pandemic is unique as it is the first time we have seen such dislocation in so many countries at the same time. All financial centres are going through unprecedented emergency implementation of disaster planning activation.
It is unprecedented in Financial Markets (at least in my memory!) to have so many people working from home globally. We have previously seen localised examples such as on Wall Street after the tragic event of 9/11, but nothing on this global scale. As firms dust off the business continuity plans, some are hitting problems such as systems not allowing remote trading. This requires a tweaking of rule books and system settings. For those deploying a unified, modular platform, the task is somewhat easier when suddenly so many core staff are working from home as any system changes can be made once, and once only.
We are living in an unknown world at the moment.
Unknown for our day-to-day working life, unknown for our health, for our relatives , for our holidays and for our immediate future.
