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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (1546)	5/2/1998 1:02:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 9818

[INSURANCE-COMPANY] Y2K at Cuna Mutual 'CUNA Mutual Group is the credit union insurance and financial services company. It serves credit unions in 57 countries with a menu of over 150 products and services. No other company in the world offers so many credit union-specific products. CUNA Mutual Group has 4,500 employees and assets of more than $6.5 billion. ____________ Year 2000 (Y2K) Considerations Beyond the Mainframe or the PC on Your Desk Vendors Embedded Programming Alarm Systems Utilities Elevators ATM Networks Shared Branching Future Purchases Member Awareness Open for business? Checklist for Credit Unions VENDORS Most credit unions use a variety of vendors. Sometimes, vendor choice is determined by a sponsor or controlled by a sponsor. It is vitally important to determine if your current vendors will be able to continue their service to you, since many vendors may be using systems that are not Y2K-compliant. EMBEDDED PROGRAMMING Many devices employ embedded programming in chips which allow them to function properly. Some of this programming will not operate past the year 2000. You'll need to identify the devices that are critical to your operation and determine the extent of the problem. Depending on the importance of the device, you have three choices: repair, replace or retire. ALARM SYSTEMS Burglary, robbery and fire alarms often contain embedded programming to direct the functions they control. For example, a common fail-safe feature on burglar alarms activates the alarm when a problem is detected. This means that losing track of what day it is may cause many alarms to sound. Now, multiply this by the number of alarm systems in place today. As you can imagine, New Year's Day, 2000 could be very noisy. Police won't be able to respond to all the alarms, and this may expose you to burglary loss. If your robbery alarm can't find what day it is, it may not work, or it may decide to activate in error. Remember that 01/01/2000 is a Saturday when many credit unions are open. Losing the ability to sound a robbery alarm exposes you to robbery loss and harm to your employees. Remember these are only potential problems. You have the critical task of determining the extent of the problem - and solving it. If you lose your alarm capabilities, consider hiring an armed guard until the problem can be solved. UTILITIES Power, water and sewer service is often computer-controlled. We are aware that water and sewer functions are in fact controlled by non-compliant systems in some locations. ELEVATORS If you have an elevator you must determine if it will function past 1/1/2000. Elevator maintenance schedules are computerized, and if they're not updated properly, the elevators may shut down due to an improper date analysis. You should obtain written verification of Y2K compliance from the manufacturer. ATM NETWORKS You should determine if all ATM networks you participate in will be compliant. SHARED BRANCHING If you participate in shared branching, you should determine if the shared facility will be Y2K compliant. Consider that if your ATM network and your shared branching system failed, you'd probably have many members in your lobby wanting cash, much more than you'd normally have on hand. FUTURE PURCHASES Anything that contains embedded programming, and all computer hardware and software, should only be purchased if it comes with a written guarantee of Y2K compliance. MEMBER AWARENESS If a member's home computer fails, your home banking system won't be much use to them. Consider mounting a member awareness program to motivate them to fix their PC problems before they become your problem. WILL YOU BE OPEN? 1/1/2000 will be a Saturday. Will you be open? If so make sure you will have enough personnel with sufficient authority to implement problem-solving measures on hand. Make sure credit union staff are aware that it may take longer than usual to get to work: most traffic lights are computer-controlled. _____ cunamutual.com