Delivering Complex Capital Markets Operations in a Covid-19 world – How we supported a leading Global Custodian Bank

Our client is a leading Global Custodian Bank for whom Hexaware does a significant extent of critical middle and back office processes.

Covid-19 posed a significant challenge to us and to our client. Some of the key questions in everyone’s mind:

• Our agreed BCP plan of alternate and split locations is no longer valid since teams cannot get to office in the event of a total lockdown
• How do we get the team to Work from Home with the necessary devices and connectivity in time to ensure minimal / no business disruption? Very critical since transaction volumes were expected to significantly increase due to market volatility
• Due to the nature of processes and the business and operation risk involved it is imperative to ensure data security. What can we do to ensure that operational and security risk is mitigated?
• How can we manage operations for complex processes like reconciliation, settlements, trade repair etc., in a remote working environment? Totally new territory for us and the client

But we did it! Working together with the client team, we did pull off a miracle:

• From 0% work from home, we went to 100% work from home in a matter of a day and a half
• We delivered to all operational SLAs without missing a beat

We handled significant volume spikes; e.g. 33% higher transaction volumes in trade management in a work from home operating model. This transaction volume was a historical high for the customer in over 20+ years.

How did we do it?

1. We moved to a work from home model as opposed to a phased approach as soon as the announcement for lockdown was made
2. Our approach to the WFH model revolved around these dimensions
   1. Thorough device configuration and connectivity testing process put in place by our systems team
   2. Ensuring the team had devices to connect – 400+ devices were allotted in a day, and the team collected these devises just prior to total lockdown
   3. Connectivity – being creative about the how using home networks, dongles, mobiles hotspots
   4. Data Security – highly secured access to Citrix, use of VPN grouping, disabling non-essential accesses once logged in to VPN, system usage monitoring on a regular basis, individuals signing of Security Responsibility Acceptance documentation

We did experience a process of settling into the new normal, but were able to  quickly turn things around.

As Covid-19 continues to pulverize global economies while causing significant capital markets volatility, we were not only able to ensure business continuity but also achieved exceptional performance.

And this is just one of the examples from many success stories Hexaware has under its wings.

A testament to the Hexaware spirit rising above the current crisis to deliver value to customers.