Most local banks ready for millennium bug<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Most of the country's banks are ready to cope
\nwith the computer glitch in the new millennium, according to the
\nlatest assessment by the government-sponsored Y2K Task Force.<\/p>\n
The Task Force said in its report made available to The
\nJakarta Post on Thursday that the country's banking sector is 95
\npercent Y2K compliant.<\/p>\n
The report said Bank Indonesia (the central bank) had its
\ninformation technology system remediated, supply chain
\nmanagement, embedded system management, communications and
\ncontingency plans checked, fixed and tested in October.<\/p>\n
The central bank's electronic clearing system in Jakarta,
\nwhich was developed in 1997 to cover about 87 percent of daily
\nclearing volume in Indonesia, is Y2K compliant.<\/p>\n
Bank Indonesia's facilities, which are ready for the
\nmillennium bug also include its automated clearing system, which
\nis a paper-based clearing system using reader-sorter machines, in
\nJakarta, Surabaya and Medan, as well as its semi automated
\nclearing system using stand alone PC's at all its branches,
\naccording to the report.<\/p>\n
The Task Force report also said that at least 85 percent of
\nthe 167 commercial banks operated in Indonesia had reached their
\nY2K ready status by August.<\/p>\n
The 141 Y2K ready banks include about 20 major banks, which
\nare considered as highly dependent on computer systems and
\ntogether hold about 93 percent of the market.<\/p>\n
The report, however, does not provide the names of the banks.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian Y2K Task Force is a government-sponsored
\ninstitution established to supervise the Y2K anticipation
\nprograms run by the country's essential infrastructures, such as
\nbanking, telecommunications, energy and transportation.<\/p>\n
In order to speed up and synchronize Y2K preparation with
\nother commercial banks, Bank Indonesia is scheduled to run an
\nindustry-wide test on all banks later this month to check on the
\nbanks' final preparations as well as contingency plans to
\nanticipate possible computer failure during the date rollover to
\nJan. 1, 2000.<\/p>\n
Y2K refers to problems computerized systems will face at the
\nturn of the century, when their two-digit-year counters fail to
\ndistinguish between 1900 and 2000.<\/p>\n
The glitch may cause computers to shut down or fail to
\nfunction properly. Power supplies may drop, telephones and
\ntransportation systems may stop operation and automated banking
\ntransactions may fail.<\/p>\n
The United States-based Gartner Group, a Y2K-compliance
\nmonitoring body, said in a recent report Indonesia was among some
\n30 developing nations most prone to the Y2K problems with some 66
\npercent of businesses in the countries possibly affected.<\/p>\n
Bank Indonesia has prepared the National Risk Mitigation and
\nContingency Preparation to anticipate any possible failure in
\ncomputer systems.<\/p>\n
Among the steps in the mitigation and contingency preparations
\nare the establishment of a government blanket guarantee for
\ndepositories for the next six months, discount windows as the
\nshort term fund for helping banks in the condition of a mismatch
\nand production of more bank notes to ensure a sufficient cash
\nsupply.<\/p>\n
The bank recently said that it planned to impose a one-day
\nholiday on Dec. 30 for banks to print all data as a backup in
\ncase of system failure. (cst)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/most-local-banks-ready-for-millennium-bug-1447893297",
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