SEC Still Struggling for Industry-Wide Compliance
<< The U.S. securities industry has been tackling the Y2K Problem since 1995. Therefore, it was the only industry in a position to do industry-wide testing in 1999. Participating in this testing, which was conducted in March and April of 1999 under the direction of the Securities Industry Association (SIA), were nine securities markets, 400 securities firms, and the utilities.
At first blush, the results seemed successful. Of the almost 260,000 hypothetical trades simulating transactions for the dates December 29, 30 and 31, 1999 and January 3, 2000, 97.54% settled successfully. Of the unsuccessful trades, only .02% was attributable to Y2K.
But what the SIA test summary failed to mention is that only a fraction of the SEC-regulated companies participated in the industry-wide testing, many of which are not yet compliant . The regulated companies include the registered exchanges, about 8,500 broker-dealers firms (with tens of thousands of branch offices and more than a half million registered dealers), about 8,000 investment advisors, about 5,350 investment companies (including mutual funds), about 748 transfer agents, about 15 public utility holding companies, and about 15 registered clearing agencies. These companies are electronically fused together not only with each other, but also with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the SIA, the National Association of Securities Dealers and its NASDAQ over-the-counter trading system, the banks, and the utilities. Picture this, and you'll get a small hint of the complexity of Wall Street data exchanges and the vulnerability of this market to Y2K disruptions ... more ... >>
y2ktimebomb.com
Same old Y2k testing and reporting games.
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