HSBC director's intense effort to recreate trading floor at home

Now that trading from home has become the norm, there are fewer photographs floating around of traders' so-called 'Rona Rigs' - the desk arrangements for traders who are working from home offices. This is a shame: as time goes in, it seems they may be becoming more elaborate.

HSBC has today issued a video (visible if you click the Twitter link below) of three of its traders' rigs. Alongside the professions of astonishment ("I've never had to trade from home before," "Being able to walk out and see my family in ten seconds is amazing"), the most interesting thing is just how many screens Amyn Husain, a director in global markets trading has managed to a) amass and b) fit on his desk.

You can see Husain's set-up in the photograph at the bottom of this page. By our reckoning, he has at least six screens, plus a lucite trophy to help make his home office more like Canary Wharf. In the accompanying video, Husain explains that his arrangement is similar to work and that he can access colleagues, clients, markets and Bloomberg on his screens, and that he runs CNBC in the background to immerse himself into the trading floor environment.

Sitting and trading on your own can be quite difficult, adds Husain, who is also shown with his dog on his lap earlier in the video.

Other HSBC traders don't seem so well-equipped. 'Oliver', another trader, only has three screens. Nidhi Bansal, the bank's global head of financial resource management and ex-head of structured rates trading, has just two...

HSBC's Tweet:

For the first time in HSBC history, our traders are working remotely. Three of our UK traders share their experiences of recreating the trading floor at home, so that they can continue supporting clients during lockdown. pic.twitter.com/oAspgE4mF1

— HSBC (@HSBC) May 5, 2020

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