Broker Tradition Shifts to Virtual Desktops

Interdealer broker Compagnie Financière Tradition (CFT) is considering moving to a fully virtual-desktop environment, after making a big investment in remote working technology during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In March and April, CFT had to get all staff working remotely with as little disruption as possible to productivity, while also experiencing increased volumes on some of its platforms. The company shipped equipment to some 600 people, and built a login so remote workers could access their applications via the web.

“I reviewed the costs, and found we spent the equivalent of two-and-a-half years of work in a month. Everyone was on it, including me, building laptops and PCs and anything else we needed to work remotely. It was intense,” Yann L’Huillier, CFT group chief information officer, tells WatersTechnology.

L’Huillier says that access to software is a significant part of any business continuity plan (BCP), and CFT worked hard to make sure all its brokers and other staff could access what they needed in a short time. Financial firms still operate largely on what he calls “heavy desktops”: each user has a PC installed with the applications they need. If you step away from your PC, you can no longer access the apps.

Today, as part of the company’s BCP, all the apps CFT deploys to which brokers and traders need access, must be via the web, L’Huillier says, even once workers are back in the office. He adds that CFT will probably move away from this type of access in the future, and go fully virtualized.

During the early days of the pandemic-induced lockdown, however, the company invested in desktop virtualization software from Citrix. A Citrix server is installed and virtualization tools allow CFT to deliver centrally-hosted apps and data to the desktops of staff even though they are not in the office. The applications are still installed on a PC in the office, but a worker can access what they need remotely through an ordinary browser.  

Today, as part of the company’s BCP, all the apps CFT deploys to which brokers and traders need access, must be via the web, L’Huillier says, even once workers are back in the office.

He adds that CFT will probably move away from this type of access in the future, and go fully virtualized.

“Today, for example, we have a PC under each desk. Slowly but surely, we are going to move to having PCs in data centers, so that if we want to reboot them, we don’t need to have someone basically pushing a button on the PC, or the PC could be knocked out by someone,” he says.

One drawback of the current system is that an IT staff member still has to be in the office to reboot PCs that crash, and sort out other kinds of interruptions to remote workers’ connections to their PCs. “We had issues one evening when we lost power on a number of PCs and we thought we had a network outage or something. It happened that it was the cleaning staff who knocked down a power supply. It happens,” L’Huillier says.

CFT is not alone in turning to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) amid the lockdowns that forced workers all over the world to stay home. Citrix is a major player in this space, but other companies like Cisco Systems, IBM, Amazon WorkSpaces, and Red Hat also offer VDI. Some of these companies posted increased earnings in the first quarter of this year, following a pandemic-fueled surge in interest in this technology. Last month, Mike Dargan, head of group technology at UBS, told WatersTechnology how the firm migrated staff to a VDI setup some years ago, and Dargan says it gave the investment bank an edge during lockdown.

Pandemic Plan

When the lockdown orders came from officials and it was clear that its brokers were going to be working from home for a while, CFT had two key concerns, L’Huillier says. Firstly, as an intermediary in over-the-counter (OTC) markets, it had to figure out how to ensure that brokers could still connect to traders. CFT operates fully electronic platforms in markets like foreign exchange; hybrid platforms—which are a combination of voice and electronic price contribution—for swaps, bonds and derivatives; as well as auction and matching platforms. The Switzerland-based company also operates Tradition broker and TraditionSEF in the US.

“We had to figure out how to move from an office setup where brokers have big dealer-boards, with 20 banks on the phone at once and easy access to their screens and analytics, to a remote set-up, while maintaining communication and ensuring that when we find the best price, the trader is not going to trade with someone else because of a lack of communication,” L’Huillier says.  

Secondly, all this had to be done while the broker was adhering to its usual regulatory and compliance stipulations.

“These concerns were heightened given the time restraints: We needed to have 600 people working from home, with the same level of productivity, in the space of a month and a half,” L’Huillier says.

We spent a significant amount of money in March, but it was a good investment: we put 600 people to work and within a month; we had a BCP that will serve us for the foreseeable future.

At the same time, the company saw unusual volumes on some of its platforms, though L’Huillier says he can’t give more details. He says, however, that demand on voice platforms increased.

“Where you have a lot of orders, a lot of volatility, a lot of depth in the market, then the electronic market is the market of choice. In a situation where people are dispersed across different areas, and the market is different—the volume is there, but it’s difficult to have good price discovery on the over-the-counter market [to understand] where the price is, where it should be, where can I trade—voice trading becomes the favored option,” he says. “In March and April, voice brokerage increased purely because of the unique circumstances of this particular pandemic. In a different BCP situation, the electronic market would be much more prominent,” he says.

With increased volume in voice platforms, CFT had to ensure that brokers had what they needed to be productive. The company ordered a lot of equipment for its staff, L’Huillier says, according to the varying needs of senior brokers, junior brokers, and back-office and IT staff: thousands of screens, and hundreds of PCs and laptops.

“We probably bought most of the world’s supply of Logitech cameras,” he quips.

Senior CFT brokers, for example, now have three screens in their homes plus a physical dealer-board, speakers, and a camera. IT staff have a small laptop, which connects to a PC in the office via a login, and there are five different settings configured according to who is logging in. CFT closely monitored brokers’ connections to make sure they weren’t disrupted by people sharing their household, such as homebound kids streaming Netflix.

CFT implemented Zoom on premise, rather than in the cloud, which allowed it to sidestep the security concerns that emerged around the popular video conferencing app. The company operates its own Zoom instance within its own network and its own Zoom rooms with password protection. Brokers have their own Zoom Room that no one else can access.  

“We learned to put in place a proper business continuity plan in a month,” L’Huillier says. “The financial industry used to spend tens of millions to come up with BCPs that could never be triggered because none of the use cases planned for actually happened. We spent a significant amount of money in March, but it was a good investment: we put 600 people to work and within a month; we had a BCP that will serve us for the foreseeable future.”