Good News from Bank of New York

Bank of New York is pleased to report that renovation and testing of mission-critical systems has been substantially completed. Renovated systems are now being used in production environments giving it the opportunity to engage in testing with selected customers. Further, the Bank continues to maintain programs to monitor major service providers and major borrowers to evaluate their management of the Year 2000 issue. Business continuity plans are being reviewed and upgraded in an effort to mitigate potential risks.

Year 2000 Compliance of Mission-Critical Systems

Application Inventory, Assessment, and Renovation - Completed

Code change implementation and no-harm testing - Completed

Internal system, acceptance and certification testing

Cash Management Systems - Completed

Securities Processing, Broker Dealer Services, ADR, Corporate Trust,

and International Systems- Completed

Retail, Stock Transfer and Trading Systems - Completed

Agency Testing: FED Wire Funds, S.W.I.F.T., CHIPS, GSCC, PTC, DTC, CREST, CGO, NYCE,

others. Completed & Continuing

Vendor Products Compliance (infrastructure) Completed

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This is one of 11 Promise Keepers from de Jagers site. So banks can report on their successful remediation.

So what do you guys think? Is this happy face PR or are the mushrooms starting to sprout?

-- a (a@a.a), January 31, 1999

Answers

Taken at face value, its good news. The problem is that there should have been dozens of such announcements by now. Lastly, nothing tests code like actual production, so lets hold the applause until its run in production for a few months. And don't forget that the final hurdle is actual Rollover and a production environ > 1999.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), January 31, 1999.

I take this as good news. It is very hard to say what they are saying without great risk, unless they have done hours of testing.

-- Reporter (foo@foo.bar), January 31, 1999.

Reporter: that's more like months of testing. The part about testing with selected customers is also important, since this is where external interfaces get stressed, and you don't do this unless you're damn confident you got it right - and neither do the selected customers! Testing of course is ongoing forever.

It would be nice to see a couple thousand more of these announcements.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 31, 1999.

Yes, I see it as good news. Expect a lot more from those who got an early start. As noted above, the problem is that there isn't enough good news.

Also, in the banking industry in particular, as Alan Greenspan said: "99% readiness isn't good enough. It has to be 100%." Or words to that effect. When all of the banks (not just U.S. but international) have the same announcement--verified compliance through the testing phase--then I will consider giving them back my hard-earned savings.

Don't hold your breath.

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), January 31, 1999.

This is good to hear, since I bank at BoNY.

At this point, however, I still don't plan on leaving more than a few hundred bucks in my accounts at rollover. You know, enough to write checks to the Electric company, Gas company, Credit Card company, IRS. It IS systemic, after all...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), January 31, 1999.

We are in agreement that this is GOOD NEWS!!! Now, where oh where is Y2K MY @ss so he can see that we are NOT just negative thinking, one trick ponies??!!?? CR

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 31, 1999.

In Answer to flint who said:

"It would be nice to see a couple thousand more of these announcements."

Again this shows his invincible ignorance. There are over 11,000 banking institutions. A couple thausand more respnses like the Bank of NY would STILL be utterly meaningless in the overall banking community.

As of now not a handful are compliant. And flint would besatified with a couple thousand out of over 11,000.

I'll just chalk it up to bad phrasing rather than raging stupidity, once again.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), January 31, 1999.

I agree, good news. Now I'd like to know something about the number of transactions that Bank of America processes in which it receives data from overseas institutions.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), February 01, 1999.

Hmmm. "substantially" completed. Hmmm. still testing internal stuff. Hmmm. still several external tests to go during the remainder of this year. But, lets call it good news, same with BankBoston. But the industry? Toast. Think bell curve distribution. At this time this type of good news should be repeated by a few hundred banks everyday.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 01, 1999.

I live in a small town with a bank that employs about 12 people. They have claimed compliance for a year. Ask me if I care. When 2000 arrives without a problem, then I'll trust the banks again. Trust but verify.

-- Dave (dave22@concentric.net), February 01, 1999.