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Law360, London (March 30, 2020, 11:33 AM BST) -- Bosses must allow traders and financial advisers to work from home during the coronavirus emergency, the Financial Conduct Authority has said, as it handed responsibility for deciding whether employees should travel into the office to senior managers.
The City watchdog said on Friday that senior managers at financial services companies are responsible for identifying which of their staff are unable to perform their roles from home. Only then should these employees travel into the office.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson stepped up measures last week to prevent the spread of the virus, which effectively amounts to a lockdown in the U.K. The measures include closing retailers and high street banks, as well as telling employees to work from home unless it is impossible for them to do so.
"We expect the total number of roles requiring an ongoing physical presence in the office or business continuity site to be far smaller than the number of workers needed to ensure all of a firm's business activities continue to function on a business as usual basis," the FCA said in a statement published Friday.
The regulator said it does not expect financial advisers, traders and credit providers to have to go into the office or arrange face-to-face meetings. Business support staff and claims management companies must also work from home.
"We expect the number of exceptions to this to be low," the watchdog said.
Employers should take every possible step to allow their staff to work from home, including providing suitable IT equipment, the FCA said.
Europe is allowing financial advisers to deviate from securities rules to ensure that they can work from home. The European Securities and Markets Authority has said there may be some cases during the spread of the COVID-19 disease in which finance companies cannot record conversations that they are required to under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.
But ESMA has said it expects finance businesses to take alternative steps to mitigate risks if they are unable to record conversations because staff are working from home. This could include taking written minutes or notes of conversations.
--Editing by Ed Harris.
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