WALL STREET TO DECLARE SPECIAL Y2K HOLIDAY
Will Spend $4-6 Billion on Date Compliance Over Two Years
At 5:41 p.m. EST yesterday, Tuesday (9/16/97), a stealth item wended its way across the Dow Wire reporting that the SIA (Securities Industries Association) considers the Y2K problem as "probably the biggest technological issue we've ever faced as a world."
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From: C.K. Houston Wednesday, Sep 17 1997 9:44AM EST Reply #6284
WSJ reports today (9/17/97) that "The securities industry is considering declaring a market holiday around New Year 2000 to test computer systems adapted for the change in the millennium, the Securities Industry Association said Tuesday. ....."
Apparently they are considering have Friday, Dec 31, 1999 and Monday Jan 3, 2000 declared a market holiday to test systems. This could certainly make people nervous in late 1999!
From: Judge Wednesday, Sep 17 1997 11:26AM EST Reply #6288
Actually, the SIA has been far ahead of the game on the issue. They formed a Year 2000 Task Force almost 18 months ago, have delegated tasks to numerous subcommittees, meet monthly to determine progress, write regularly to the SEC & Congress, have worked hard to develkop common data interchange standards & to bring the commercial banking
industry into the loop,have scheduled a series of "street-wide" tests to determine whether the huge number of affected firms are making collective progress together, have proposed "posting" the names of firms next year who are not making sufficient progress and therefore pose a risk to the rest of the Street, etc.
I suspect that the proposal for the special holiday is just an effort to be extra careful to identify anyone who, despite these efforts has still managed not to fully remediate its systems, before anyone else receives a transmission of contaminated data. Just speculation on my part, but in light of the leadership the SIA has shown on the issue, it's the only sensible interpretation I can come up with. |
