We are living in extraordinary times

In the wake of a worldwide pandemic, financial services organizations (FSOs) are shuttering offices and are sending employees home in droves. Working virtually, which used to be the exception, is now the norm, and words like ‘social distancing,’ ‘pandemic,’ and ‘COVID’ have become part of our every-day vernacular. “Social distancing led to remote work, remote work led very quickly to decentralization.

Even Nasdaq transitioned to doing exchange-traded activity entirely electronically for the first time in history,” said Chris DeNigris, Director of Product Marketing, NICE Actimize. “

We are clearly in unprecedented times. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on FSOs has been profound.” In fact, many FSOs, who never foresaw a situation where all of their regulated employees could end up working virtually, are now discovering that their well thought out business continuity plans, which mainly revolved around backup facilities or split trading floors, are not viable at all, given the current situation.

As a result, in recent weeks, firms have been scrambling to get traders and other regulated employees to set up shop at home. In a recent survey, 76% of firms said they are likely or very likely to retain some level of remote trading structure for the foreseeable future. And that brings up other concerns.

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