As outbreak spreads, world’s banks are shifting operations
GLOBAL banks are stepping up their response to the coronavirus, shifting operations as the outbreak spreads in New York, London and other financial hubs.
JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley and Danish lender Danske Bank are dividing their sales and trading workers, sending some employees to back-up locations to reduce disruptions if employees are exposed to the virus, people briefed on the plans said.
JPMorgan and Wells Fargo & Co restricted non-essential domestic travel, Goldman Sachs Group Inc is planning to split workers among rotating teams and Royal Bank of Canada turned a conference scheduled for next week into a virtual event.
The moves go beyond previous efforts in which banks had been testing and adjusting plans for keeping critical operations open through a potential pandemic, but hadn’t actually implemented them.
Experts have been urging populations to implement social-distancing measures to limit the spread of the highly contagious virus. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that spread of the virus from person to person is likely to become more common.
JPMorgan’s sales and traders will be informed of their assigned locations this week, and are expected to work from those places and limit contact with employees at different sites “until further notice,” according to the memo.
The bank also prohibited staff from different locations from attending the same in-person meetings with clients or regulators, and told them not to attend the same internal meetings, such as training sessions and town halls.
“We are starting to shift people as a precautionary measure at this stage,” Marc Badrichani, who leads global sales and research, and Troy Rohrbaugh, the head of global markets, wrote in a memo to employees Thursday. “Dividing our workforce into different locations improves our ability to serve clients continuously while reducing the health risks associated with physical contact should a case arise.”
JPMorgan’s senior leaders are also recommending against non-essential domestic business travel in all of its worldwide locations, according to a memo to staff sent late on Thursday, expanding a policy that previously limited international travel. And the firm has postponed a gaming industry conference set for next week and made another investor event a virtual one.
Morgan Stanley has begun to shift half of its traders from Manhattan operations to redundancy sites in Westchester, New York, one of the people said.
While top Citigroup Inc executives have been visiting redundancy sites in New Jersey and London that will serve as back-ups to its main trading floors, the bank hasn’t yet moved most traders, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
JPMorgan’s precautions, which will result in only a small number of sales and trading staff working from home, highlight the difficulty banks have had making contingency plans for traders, who can’t telecommute as easily.