Following the WHO’s (World Health Organization) declaration of the worldwide outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a pandemic (with eight confirmed cases in Nigeria to date), we at CSCS, have put in place measures to deal with the outbreak, in accordance with the Guidance for Businesses and Employers issued by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
OVERVIEW
From a business perspective, the lessons from this pandemic over the past few weeks have prompted us to revalidate our processes, reinforcing our aspirations at leveraging technology to deliver self-service platforms to our Community. Whilst we remain open between the hours of 8:00am and 5:00pm (Monday – Friday), we are positioned to respond to emerging social changes, occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have partially activated our nimble business continuity and disaster recovery models, as we seek to ensure that we are able to rapidly adapt to any of the scenarios being pre-empted by our enterprise risk management team, as well as capable of implementing measured responses to black swan events. More importantly, we are encouraging our participants and clients to stay safe during this rapidly evolving period as we must all increase our awareness and control measures against the spread of COVID-19. In this regard, we are also encouraging participants and clients to limit visits to our business premises, but make use of our digital platforms, including online services, web chat, phone calls to customer contact centre, CSCS mobile application, RegConnect, Data Exchange etc. These digital channels help to reduce physical contacts and travel which are positive steps towards mitigating the risk of inadvertently spreading the virus
OUR SPECIFIC MEASURES
All staff, walk-in customers, visitors and market participants are to take note of the following reinforced measures:
Hygiene: As a way of protecting our staff and visitors, we have instituted two layers of temperature check and hand sanitization, both at the ground floor lobby and at the entrance of every floor of our offices. We have enhanced our hygiene and broader sanitation, with increased frequency of cleaning in general areas and use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
- All staff, walk-in customers and visitors are required to take advantage of the hand sanitizer gels available around CSCS offices as well as the handwash in the restrooms for increased hygiene and are required to submit to the temperature checks at the entrance of the Stock Exchange building.
Social distancing: As a way of mitigating our staff’s vulnerability, we have enjoined everyone to limit exposure to non-essential gatherings, except when unavoidable.
- All visits to CSCS are currently restricted to the CSCS Customer Care Center situated on the 13th floor of the Stock Exchange building;
- We have suspended all physical meetings with visitors from affected countries until otherwise advised;
- Vendors are required to adhere to new measures in place for all visitors to our offices and are required to declare if they have travelled out of the country within the last two weeks;
- Whilst the Nigerian government is yet to institute any travel ban, we have stopped all non-essential official travel. Essential business trips are also restricted to in-country. Consequently, we are promoting the use of technologies such as video conferencing facilities and regular audio-conference calls for meetings and other business engagements. In this regard, all business and stakeholder meetings will now be held via video conferencing and other teleworking facilities until advised otherwise.
Business Continuity and Work Flexibility: Whilst we do not hope to activate our full business continuity plan, as it is a contingency plan for deteriorating circumstances;
- All operational staff have been equipped to work remotely with no compromise to IT security or communications;
- We have enhanced our digital channels to remotely service all our clients’ needs, as we expect increased traffic on these electronic channels, including the customer contact call centre, where we have trained more staff, in readiness to deploy additional resources to meet the probable rise in customer traffic on the channel;
- Our office and production IT environments are fully remotely operable, and we are prepared to switch either or both to our Disaster Recovery environment should there be any disruption to physical access;
- We are ready to activate our business continuity plan as soon as unfolding events require it;
- We have reviewed the disaster recovery and business continuity plan of all our critical services providers to ascertain that our ability to serve our customers will not be interrupted.
Extreme and Plausible Lockdown Scenario:
- In the event of an extreme and plausible scenario of a lockdown situation, our business continuity team will continue to provide essential and critical services as long as the market remains open for business. This is our commitment.
OUR PROMISE TO THE MARKET:
On our part, we will continue to innovate towards ensuring safe depository of your financial assets, effective service delivery and enhanced engagement. Just as we have, we implore you to imbibe and advocate the precautions advised by the World Health Organisation, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, and other global health organisations, as we all stand together to stem the spread of this “unwanted” virus.
We trust you will stay safe and alert to news, from credible sources, on emerging trends on this pandemic. Please, reach out to us on any way we can be of support to you during this challenging time.
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