In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed in disbelief as a global health crisis unfolded from nation to nation, and we entered the beginning of a mandatory lockdown period – an unnatural isolation period in order to stem any further spread of the disease.
As many leaders from the global financial markets workforce entered a state of ‘working-from-home’ (WFH), the home study was seen to suddenly evolve from its ad-hoc usage for the odd evening or weekend working engagements, into a fully-fledged weekly office location.
The Futures Industry Association (FIA) released a summary of the derivatives industry leaders’ personal stories to highlight how these individuals have weathered the operational challenges of working away from their respective offices and direct interaction with teams. A number of leaders from clearing houses, exchanges, service providers and regulatory bodies have been mentioned within the FIA summary.
The stories have a central theme, which revolves around how their professional resilience and fortitude have been remarkably strong given the operational challenges of working remotely. Central Counterparties (CCPs) in particular have functioned and performed their duties exceptionally well given the remote functioning and coordination from key personal. CCPs reliably demonstrated the successes of their business continuity plans (BCP) as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and have since been able to offer business as usual (BAU) activities, irrespective of these testing-times.
Overall, the wider derivatives community have been able to stay well connected, aligned to planned objectives and agile in accordance to the new ‘norm’. The professional approach, well-structured BCPs and BAU are all a testament to the level of resilience these organizations have shown during these unprecedented times.
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