INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mumbai: Even as several new-age companies as well as manufacturing players have asked employees to work remotely to limit the spread of the
coronavirus, regulatory, infrastructure and compliance constraints are holding back brokerages, mutual funds and other stock market
participants to recommend work-from-home to traders and dealers
Some, however, have worked out ways to keep their operations running with a minimal in-office staff.
For brokerages, among the main hurdles
is the impositon of the no-cellphones rule during market hours for traders if they work from a remote location
This is done to stop leakage in trading data and client positions, which could be used for insider trading or front-running, both illegal
acts under Sebi rules.
According to Ashish Pyasi, associate partner of law firm Dhir and Dhir Associates, “It will be challenging to
maintain the record of transactions and recordings if employees work from home
Unless a system, which will cover these situations, is put in place immediately, it will be hard for regulators and stock exchanges to keep
a check.”
Also, financial intermediaries depend on trading terminals for price updates and feeds in order to place bets, and to have
similar infrastructure at home is difficult.
Pradeep Gupta, co-founder - VC, Anand Rathi Group, said that it had looked at a workfrom-home
solution and bifurcated work basis on what is possible and what it may face in terms of regulatory or compliance challenges
“Trading cannot happen from home as it requires terminals and has to be done from office, from the designated desk and by the designated
person according to compliance.”
At Centrum Capital, dealers and traders, who punch orders on BOLT, have not been allowed to work from
home, while its sales and research analysts have been advised to work remotely
However, Motilal Oswal Group has put up secondary facilities so that business critical employees could work either from office or from
another place so that they could avoid public transport, Sudhir Dhar, its ED - head of HR, said.
Sebi regulations for mutual funds and
market intermediaries do not expressly prohibit remote connectivity for employees.