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(Adds details on Royal Bank of Canada and Morgan Stanley,
background on New York City state of emergency)
By Imani Moise and Elizabeth Dilts Marshall
NEW YORK, March 12 (Reuters) - Working from home went from
optional to mandatory across Wall Street this week as financial
firms reported their first confirmed cases of coronavirus and
the outbreak triggered a state of emergency in New York City.
JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc
and Morgan Stanley each announced similar programs on
Thursday for working remotely to stem the spread of the
pandemic. JPMorgan and Goldman told employees the staff would be
split roughly in two for a weekly rotation in which half the
workers will work from home and half go to the office.
JPMorgan's plan applies to New York-area employees while
Goldman's plan was for most staff across North America and
Europe, excluding some sales, trading and critical staff.
JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender, informed New York-area
employees in an internal memo seen by Reuters. The bank later
confirmed the program, set up in response to a request from the
state government.
The bank plans that by the end of this month, only 25% to
50% of team members will work from home, the memo said.
The plan applies to most corporate employees based in
Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jersey City, New Jersey, but not to
branch workers or traders.
Goldman Sachs told employees that most staff across North
America and Europe would start working from home or one of the
bank's business continuity centers on a rotating schedule
starting Monday, according to another memo viewed by Reuters.
Morgan Stanley told all staff who do not have to work in the
firm's offices to work from home, apart from some sales and
trading staff, who are working from secondary trading locations.
The bank also banned all travel, domestic or international,
not deemed business critical.
Barclays PLC and Credit Suisse Group AG
also informed their investment bankers on Wednesday of a similar
rotating schedule, sources said.
A spokesman for Credit Suisse declined to comment and a
Barclays representative was not immediately available.
The banks also have ramped up other precautionary efforts
like office deep-cleaning after firms like Barclays and
BlackRock Inc reported their first confirmed cases.
On Thursday a Manhattan-based Royal Bank of Canada
employee tested positive, a bank representative said. The
Canadian bank has also reported two other confirmed cases in one
of its offices near Toronto.
As of Thursday there were more than 129,000 cases of
coronavirus globally and 4,750 people have died, according to a
Reuters tally.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio declared a state of
emergency in the city on Thursday as the number of confirmed
cases climbed to 95, up from 12 at the beginning of the week.
Citigroup has put signs around its New York City
headquarters asking visitors and employees not to sit on certain
chairs to practice social distancing.
Another Wall Street investment bank ran overnight disaster
tests on its remote working systems this week to prepare for
having more bankers work from home.
"It's not a matter of if, it's when," said a bank source
familiar with the contingency planning efforts.
(Reporting by C Nivedita in Bengaluru and Imani Moise and
Elizabeth Dilts Marshall in New York
Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
