Chia Daily: China's banks pass Y2K test

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http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndydb/1999/07/d6-4bank.g20.html

China's banks pass Y2K tests

CHINA'S banking sector is confident that it is immune to the year 2000 computer glitch (Y2K), as the mainframe and application systems passed the second nationwide test last weekend.

According to a preliminary report from the People's Bank of China, the central bank, available yesterday, there were no major problems discovered during the test, which focused on examining the application systems of the main banking businesses and their reaction to some sensitive dates.

During the first test in mid-June, some problems were exposed, but they will be solved before the year 2000, according to officials.

The Y2K problem occurs because some computer programs, especially older ones, might fail when the date changes to year 2000. Because they were written to recognize only the last two digits of a year, such programs can only read the year 2000 as 00, making it believe it is year 1900 instead of 2000.

Experts say the sensitive dates related to the Y2K problem, apart from December 31 this year and January 1, 2000, also include January 4 and 10, February 28 and 29, October 1 and 10.

"The test this time focused on the smooth operation on the sensitive February 28-29 dates, observing whether the computer will forget the 29th in a leap year," said Liu Ning, vice-director of science and technology department with the Bank of China.

The banking sector has spent 5 billion yuan (US$602 million) to upgrade all its hardware and software according to its contingency plans.

In an effort to minimize the losses, the central bank plans to move the year-end settlement to a day earlier, from December 31 to December 30 this year.

"It is necessary to adjust the settlement date since on that day it is very risky to conduct a large amount of transactions," said Chen Jing, an official with the bank.

Chen added that the banking sector also has prepared emergency measures to deal with unexpected situations.

The banking and securities sectors will conduct the third and last test for the millennium bug on September 18-19.

Date: 07/20/99

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 07, 1999


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