Is getting a new management team anyway to run a business?

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/tc/story.html?s=v/nm/19990521/tc/banking_transalliance_1.html

U.S. Regulators, ATM Network Reach Y2K Agreement By Andrew Clark

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. banking regulators Friday announced an agreement with a major regional electronic funds transfer network, TransAlliance L.P., to speed up its lagging Year 2000 preparations.

TransAlliance, which processes ATM and debit card transactions for nearly 800 banks, thrifts and credit unions in the western United States and Canada, committed to complete Y2K testing of the computer systems serving all of its customers by June 30, the deadline set by Federal banking agencies for all financial institutions. The company processes around 42 million electronic transactions every month.

The Y2K problem arises because many older computers record dates using only the last two digits of the year. If left uncorrected, such systems could treat the year 2000 as the year 1900, generating errors or systems crashes.

The company agreed to provide U.S. banking agencies with reports on its strategy for meeting the deadline, its progress in doing so and its contingency plans for dealing with any problems that might occur after the millennium date change.

The agencies involved are the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

TransAlliance, a partnership between a group of banks located mainly in the U.S. Northwest and computer services giant Electronic Data Systems Corp. (NYSE:EDS - news), said it was committed to getting its Y2K preparations on track.

``We are pleased that we could agree with the regulators on the steps we are taking to ensure Y2K readiness by June 30, 1999. We are confident we will meet this date,'' its president and chief executive officer, James Benson, said in a statement.

In terms of the agreement, if TransAlliance fails to meet the deadline, its customers will be free to break their contracts with it and switch to another service provider.

Art Merrick, a spokesman for the company, said it had run into some problems during a migration to a new computer platform, which extended into early 1999.

``That is done and all of the institutions TransAlliance serves are now operating on the new platform. Now the focus is to catch up on the Y2K preparations,'' he said.

The company had undergone a management shake-up and was fully focused on meeting the federal deadline, Merrick said.

``There's a new management team that's been put in place within the last three weeks,'' he said. ``They're taking the full responsibility for getting it fixed, and it's their number one priority.''

U.S regulators say most of the country's financial institutions have already taken the necessary actions to avoid Y2K-related computer problems, and they do not expect major disruptions to the banking system from the date change.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), May 21, 1999

Answers

Art Merrick, a spokesman for the company, said it had run into some problems during a migration to a new computer platform, which extended into early 1999.

``That is done and all of the institutions TransAlliance serves are now operating on the new platform. Now the focus is to catch up on the Y2K preparations,'' he said.

Is that right? They wasted all the time up till early 1999 just putting in new hardware, and only NOW they're starting to deal with y2k?

"New Platform" in other words, new hardware, same old software?

Excuse me, I gotta go take a donut break....hold my calls.

-- quasimodo (hunchback@belltower.com), May 21, 1999.

"In terms of the agreement, if TransAlliance fails to meet the deadline, its customers will be free to break their contracts with it and switch to another service provider."

Oh... goody. Who ya gonna call?

It would be intresting to know who rattled their management cage.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), May 21, 1999.

Diane,

>"In terms of the agreement, if TransAlliance fails to meet the deadline, its customers will be free to break their contracts with it and switch to another service provider."

>Oh... goody. Who ya gonna call?

There are other major providers of EFT software and processing that could step in -- I used to work for one.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), May 21, 1999.

hi, my name is dave. yes...I'm an idiot.

-- y2kook dave (idiotdave@infi.net), May 21, 1999.