Banking, telecom, power companies ready for Y2K

JAKARTA (JP): The country's banking, telecommunications and electricity industries are upbeat that their computerized systems will be fully prepared for the millennium bug by the end of 1999.

Governor of Bank Indonesia Sjahril Sabirin said the central bank was 95 percent ready and over 74 percent of about 160 banks operating in the country already had their banking systems Y2K compliant.

"We expect the entire Indonesian banking sector will be compliant before the end of the year," he said during a seminar on the Y2K readiness of banking related infrastructure.

Bank Indonesia expected all its systems and infrastructures to be Y2K compliant before the end of August, he said.

Sjahril said Bank Indonesia started its Y2K compliance program in mid-1997 and spent about Rp 60 billion (US$9.2 million) to upgrade and replace equipment and train its human resources.

The bank involved its branches nationwide in various programs to test the upgraded and repaired systems, especially for essential banking operations like clearing, accounting and cash supply, he said.

Y2K refers to problems computerized systems will face at the turn of the century, when their two-digit-year counters fail to distinguish between 1900 and 2000.

The glitch may cause computers to shut down or fail to function properly. Power supplies may drop, telephones and transportation systems may stop operation and automated banking transactions may fail.

The United States-based Gartner Group, a Y2K-compliance monitoring body, said in a recent report Indonesia was among some 30 developing nations most prone to the Y2K problems with some 66 percent of businesses in the countries possibly affected.

Sjahril said the banking sector should be completely Y2K compliant to protect financial transactions and national economy from unwanted disaster.

He said above all, foreign exchange banks should be Y2K compliant because they dealt directly and more frequently with foreign customers and counterparts.

Bank Indonesia's director of technology and information Ending Fajar said the bank planned to impose a one-day holiday on Dec. 30 for banks to print all data as a backup in case of system failure.

Ending praised the country's telecommunications and power firms for their readiness of the millennium bug, citing the banks's dependence on the services provided by both sectors.

The country's local fixed lines and domestic long distance telephone services were 80 percent ready in case of Y2K problems, state telecommunication company PT Telkom's head of information system division Wim Mozardi said.

Telkom would have its most critical system, including billing and satellite transmission, completely Y2K compliant by September, Mozardi said, adding Telkom had spent at least Rp 16.3 billion on Y2K compliance programs in the first quarter of the year alone.

He said Telkom would prepare copies of all types of telecommunications made from Dec. 1 to Dec. 31 as backup on reliable mediums to anticipate possible computer failure.

Another state-owned telecommunications company, PT Indosat, which controls the country's international long distance telecommunications service, said it was also prepared for the millennium bug.

Vital systems and facilities, including gateways in Jakarta, Medan, Batam and Surabaya, and the international transmission link and interlink services through earth stations and submarine cables, were already Y2K compliant, the company said.

Meanwhile, state-owned electricity company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) said it was 96 percent ready for Y2K problems and expected to complete its compliance program by the end of September this year. The company has allocated some $7.5 million for the program. (cst)