From the Financial Times, March 12, piece by George Graham, Banking editor, excerpts:
The Financial Services Authority, the unified financial regulator [of the UK], will today warn banks and investment companies that it will shut them down or stop them from taking on new business if it thinks they have not done enough to cope with the millennium bomb.
Michael Foot, the FSA's head of financial supervision, will argue that the so-called bomb is a regulatory issue, because financial companies that fail to prepare their computer systems to deal with the year 2000 could put investors' and depositors' money at risk...
Firms that do not satisfy the regulators that they have the millennium problem under control may simply be required to produce an independent report on their preparations. If the FSA is still not satisfied, it could restrict a firm's ability to take on new business, order it to stop doing business altogether, or compel it to transfer all its operations to another company...
Gwynneth Flower, who started work yesterday as director of Action 2000, the millennium compliance body, wants to create a state of "controlled anxiety" to raise awareness of the need for urgent action. "...We have a problem that could bring down a government. It won't but it is that serious," she said yesterday... |
