SEB is continuing to closely monitor developments with respect to the new coronavirus and has taken a number of precautionary measures to ensure the continuity of our business and safeguard the health of our customers and employees. We have thorough and well-established contingency plans and are confident that we are well prepared. As a result, we do not anticipate the coronavirus to have any significant impact on the services we provide to our customers.
SEB follows the instructions of the national Public Health Agencies and other authorities in the countries where we operate. Precautionary measures that we have taken include, requiring employees to work from alternative locations, requiring employees in quarantine due to international travels to work remote, cancelling or postponing non-essential business trips, and cancelling gatherings or meetings involving a larger number of people. Even though SEB already has markets trading in several countries around the world, we have as an additional precautionary measure also moved some staff within trading with equities, currencies and other asset classes to alternative locations to ensure that our operations can continue uninterrupted even if the situation escalates. We have also divided up critical functions and some employees and managers in the bank work from alternative locations or remote.
Our highest priority right now is to be there for our customers, make sure that companies can continue their operations, and to keep the financial markets open.
Related: Read interview with Johan Torgeby on sebgroup.com: "We will help our customers"