During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?
We have focused on three main areas:
Operational stability: make sure that our institutional counter-parties would serve the need of our clients at all times, by providing the debt of liquidity needed by the increased volatility of the financial markets.

Protect our clients’ assets: We do this by fine-tuning our offering, calibrating the margin requirements, and halt trading on those instruments showing a degree of the risk out of the limits we allow for our clients. Increase even more the performance of our support team, especially in times of uncertainty clients must be in the position to receive prompt and valuable support, and we have made sure to fulfill such need even if the request for support has significantly increased.

Full deployment of remote working: Axiory is a fresh, young company that has always believed in a flexible working environment, where people could tailor their time around their professional and personal commitments.

In the troubled times, we are living now, which are so deeply affecting the life and well-being of so many around the world, we are able to leverage on the company culture, and assure that our people can safely operate from their homes at the same time providing a seamless service to our clients. Care for our community, our people, and our clients alike. This is what Axiory is, and we are proud of it.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?
We made sure that all operations, at all levels, from senior management to support, were adequately backed up by a sound redundancy system, which would allow continuity in all circumstances. We have even increased our headcounts to make sure we can cover all vital processes, providing enough buffer to immediately adapt to possible increases in market volatility, ultimately being ahead of all possible outcomes of the crisis.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?
Given the lockdown affecting virtually the whole world, keeping people and business connected, having teams in the position to carry on their duties remotely has become more important than ever. Hence, all those services building on communication technology to allow reliable and secure teleconferencing is one of the most evident industry vertical examples in the crisis we are going through.

Financial services also are of great importance, as the safety of assets, and their appropriate use is one of the ways to adequately navigate the troubled times we are living. Within this horizontal industry, Axiory vertically positions itself at the forefront of trading services, given the strong technological background, focus on support, sound risk management framework, and safety of assets.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?
We have revised our business continuity plan as soon as the coronavirus started to show its potentiality of harming people and economies. We are also constantly revising it, trying to anticipate the likelihood and impact of knowing the foreseeable risks and conducting stress tests. This is done to provide adequate resources to face any possible situation. Should the crisis persist beyond the forecasts, we are confident that we will be very well positioned to harbour any consequence of a prologues crisis.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?
The company was already ready to run its complete operations remotely. Therefore, the impact on our product development plan has been very limited. Our geographical expansion plans, given the halt imposed on travel, needed to be revised and the development will necessarily be slowed down to a certain extent but still be developed. From a financial point of view, given the high demand for reliable access to the financial markets, the firm has performed very well and we expect similar performance for the foreseeable future.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?
Axiory is a truly people-centric organisation, and since the very beginning of the crisis, our focus as senior management has been the safety and well-being of all of our people. A number of initiatives have been put in place to face the lockdown period, spanning from educational and training opportunities to organising online fitness sessions.

Another way to make fill this lockdown period with purpose and at the same time give back to society has been that of researching opportunities to alleviate the impact of the crisis on the most affected part of the population, involving our people in organizing and deploying support projects in different countries, trying to initiate a process I. which other entities can be involved to raise donations and deploy aids to the most in need.

This has proved to be a great initiative and a very gratifying endeavour, in line with the firm’s values, which at the same time marks the way to effective corporate responsibility making a true impact for the society as a whole.