The lack of access to communication in the WhatsApp messenger for six hours on Monday negatively affected the trading of all kinds of assets – from cryptocurrencies to Russian oil. Only the transition to alternative communication platforms made it possible to avoid more serious consequences.
reuters.com
According to Reuters, despite the fact that many financial institutions have a negative attitude towards the use of the WhatsApp messenger and other Facebook services by employees, due to their convenience, they are still extremely popular among traders when communicating with customers in over-the-counter markets.
Facebook said the failure was due to a reconfiguration of the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between the company’s data centers. As a result, not only WhatsApp stopped working, but also the social network Facebook and the company’s Messenger service.
Among the victims was the London BCB Group, as trading in cryptocurrencies and providing other services. According to the head of the company, Oliver von-Landsberg Sadie, the shutdown of WhatsApp “dealt a blow” during the hottest period of trading, when there is a major interaction with American partners. Compared to the previous day, trading volumes on average fell by 15%, which the company associates precisely with interruptions in communication.
According to the consulting VoxSmart, a company that evaluates various aspects of communication services usage, has thrived on WhatsApp by financial traders before the crash – banks have to take into account the fact that customers prefer the platform, although financial institutions would prefer employees to use “official” channels of communication with customers and colleagues. As a result, the messenger has become the default communication tool in many markets, especially in continental Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Fortunately for traders and their customers, the existence of alternative platforms has made WhatsApp disconnection more of a nuisance than a disaster. For example, in India, employees of financial institutions quickly switched to Telegram, due to the fact that by the time of the shutdown most of the Asian markets had already closed, the negative impact was extremely limited.
According to the head of the Dubai investment platform Dalma Capital Zachary Cefaratti (Zachary Cefaratti), negotiations on trading cryptocurrencies in the Middle East are conducted mainly in Telegram and WhatsApp, so after the latter was turned off, Telegram began to be used more actively.
Traders in the oil markets also suffered, but there was also a negative effect mitigated by the transition to alternative platforms. According to Reuters, oil traders in Russia often use WhatsApp to discuss details of orders from Europe and Asia, but while the service outage came as an “unpleasant surprise,” everyone quickly switched to other messengers.
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