Stock market brokers association ANMI has requested SEBI to curtail trading hours on account of the nationwide lock down due to COVID 19 outbreak. The association has asked for trading hours to be limited from 10 am to 2 pm.

This is their third time ANMI is making a request to SEBI. Earlier, it had asked SEBI to close down markets till the lock down is effective. ANMI has said that brokers are facing difficult for the staff to report from office and the work from home for the crucial brokerage staff is not working well.

“The stock broking industry including the market infrastructure institutions have traditionally operated from offices with work from home practically unheard off. In spite of the best efforts by all financials institutions to minimise disruption of services, it has met with partial success due to host of factors,” ANMI said in a letter to SEBI.

According to ANMI, not all state governments have declared stock brokers as essential services making it difficult for its working staff to reach office in curfew like situation. Family members of brokerage staff has been up in the arms against the companies as they fear the person attending office was highly prone to get infected by COVID-19, the brokers told Business Line.

“The truncated trading hours, if implemented will result in trade / margin files being received on time and work can be wrapped quickly. Currently, due to late receipt of files and erratic settlement schedule the staff has to stay in office till 10 pm making it difficult for them to reach home in the absence of transport. Depository participant staff is stressed as they have limited options to work from home,” ANMI has said.

In India, a large number of retail and HNI players have trading account and demat account separate. In such cases, retail and HNIs have to fill demat slip to give orders to depository participants. There is no digital option for this. ANMI said that Mutual Funds and other support mechanicism for the industry too is not able to cope up with less staff. ANMI has said that proposed reduced timing captures the global market hours and since commodity market timing was reduced citing problems, equity market timing too should be cut.

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