Behind the scenes: Keeping stock markets functioning

The current Coronavirus pandemic has shaken up every major economy of the world and also, caused chaos in the global financial markets, with India being no exception. As the number of infected cases has started rising, the government announced 21-day lockdown in the country on March 24, 2020, asking every business, office and industry sector to shut shops temporarily, except the essential services.

The capital markets are the driving force of any economy and it is important to keep the engine warm and running even while navigating through rough weather. Hence, amidst the chaos and turmoil of a complete nationwide lockdown to ‘break the chain’ of COVID-19 spread, Indian exchanges have continued to remain functional, instilling a level of confidence to investors about their future prospects in the market.

This has been no easy feat by any means. The executives at India’s largest exchanges have ‘pulled out all the stops’ to keep India’s stock markets during this time of national crisis. Ashish Chauhan, CEO of BSE, reaches his Mumbai office from his residence in Malabar Hill early in the morning to ensure that operations are running smoothly amid a national lockdown.

There has been a disruption of public transport services for nearly a week and this poses a major challenge to the stock market brokers and its ancillary industry, which has a workforce that runs into millions in Mumbai. To combat this problem, BEST and BSE are working together to provide daily morning and evening chartered bus services dedicated to stockbrokers and stock exchange staff from Borivali and Thane. Apart from this, the exchange has also provided taxi service for other employees. Those who are not physically required at offices have been provided with digital connectivity to work from home via virtual private network (VPN). Across all departments, employees are continuously on video conferences with their colleagues in different offices and at home.

In addition, BSE has sanitised all their offices which are to be a regular affair for the next few weeks until the spread of the virus is controlled. Currently, all visitors’ entry has been barred at all exchange offices and the employees have to sanitise themselves at regular intervals. Entrance to the building requires all to be checked with a temperature-controlled gun and at any given point of time, not more than six people are allowed in a lift (which has a capacity of 20 people).

Apart from the main office in Fort, BSE has another BCP office at Belapur, Navi Mumbai and a disaster recovery (DR) site at Hyderabad that can takeover in case, Mumbai computers are not accessible. There is a millisecond-based synchronisation between the production and the DR site. Employees are divided into various teams, who are working in three shifts. People are sleeping in nearby hotels as per the business continuity planning (BCP) process developed under SEBI regulations.