In the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the apex bank of India has decided to reduce the timing of market hours from April 7 to April 17. The RBI in its circular on Friday said that COVID-19 pandemic has imposed restriction on the movement of people and made it necessary for everyone to maintain social distancing and to stay home and this in turn has impacted the functioning of financial markets.
The RBI said that in order to minimise the risks and to ensure that market participants maintain adequate checks and supervisory controls while optimising the resources and ensuring the safety of personnel, it has been decided to revise trading hours for various markets. Currency and debt markets, which normally open at 9 am and close at 5pm will now be open between 10 am and close at 2 pm.
Earlier, the RBI has acted proactively and implemented some quick measures to mitigate the damage done to the economy by this virus, be it a reduction in repo rate and reverse repo rate, or be it a moratorium provided on Equated Monthly Instalment (EMI) of customers.
“The staff and IT resources have been severely affected, posing operational and logistic risks. The thinning out of activity is impacting market liquidity and increasing volatility of financial prices,” RBI said in a notification. However, the change in the timing of currency market and debt market has come after the change in the timing of commodity and derivates market last month.
The lockdown will get over on April 14 and this change in timing in debt market by RBI will remain applicable till April 17. But the RBI has not made any change in the timing of banking services such as RTGS, NEFT and IMPS and their services will be available as earlier.