|
How bad is it for banks? This report shows that the situation is beyond repair.
A Siamese bank has found that that almost three-quarters of its mission-critical software systems are not compliant. Here is what the bank's director of computing admitted. I've never seen such honesty from anyone in charge of an IT (information technology) system:
"Whatever is done to avert the problem, there will not be enough time, said The SCB's Dr Amarit, who is also chairman of the State Enterprise IT Association. Not only is an enterprise affected internally, but all its external suppliers and their ability to cope with the date change most be Y2K compliant, he said."
We are dependent on an international banking system. If a Siamese bank is not compliant in 2000, it must be locked out of the international system in order to keep its noncompliant data from spreading. If the banking system locks out all noncompliant banks -- and today, all banks are noncompliant -- then there will be no electronic banking system in 2000. But if the system doesn't lock them out, then all compliant banks (if any) will have their data corrupted by the noncompliant banks.
You ask, "What's the solution?" Simple: the bankruptcy of all fractional reserve banks and the advent of a purely cash economy. That's what is coming in 2000.
The problem is systemic. It cannot be fixed. The banks are going down. With them will go all electronic promises to pay. The world is headed for a cash-only system in late 1999 when the bank runs begin. Prices will reflect this switch: from long-term credit to cash.
There are many, many computer programmers who keep telling us that y2k can be fixed. But they refuse to ask themselves the obvious question: "If my employer cannot get access to money from the bank, and I if can't get my money from my bank, how can I stay on the job to fix this?" The answer is obvious: he can't. He will walk. They will all walk. They will not complete their y2k repair projects.
When they start figuring this out, the programmers' exodus will begin. When the public finally figures it out, the panic will begin. It will be a panic like no other in human history: all over the industrialized world, the same terror of the same threat will spread.
Be where you want to be, with whatever you need to survive, when the panic begins.
This is from the BANGKOK POST (December 24, 1997).
* * * * * * * * *
The Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has a total of 4,485 mission critical software programs, of which 3,283 will be impacted by the Year 2000 (Y2K) date change in just two years' time, involving a total of 2,783,855 lines of code that needs to be modified.
This follows a 15-month detailed assessment of the situation, which the bank began to implement at the beginning of the second half of last year, according to the bank's IT department head Dr Amarit Laorakpong. . . .
Only 26.8 percent of the bank's programs were found not to be affected by the problem, which also affects many embedded controllers in money counters, sorters, printers and other devices, he added. . . .
Whatever is done to avert the problem, there will not be enough time, said The SCB's Dr Amarit, who is also chairman of the State Enterprise IT Association. Not only is an enterprise affected internally, but all its external suppliers and their ability to cope with the date change most be Y2K compliant, he said. . . .
The Siam Commercial Bank also has encountered problems getting responses from vendors about the Y2K problem, especially through representatives here. In several the bank has had to email head offices in the United States or elsewhere directly to get a response, Dr Amarit explained.. . .
For larger systems, Thailand is more exposed than other countries for several reasons, as a Gartner Group Survey pointed out. This is because many applications have been developed in-house, and this puts the onus to fix it on a business who may be unable to locate the original programmer.
Because of the local language issues, packages or operating systems have been heavily modified for use in Thailand, and so when upgrades for the international version were released, they were not implemented locally.
|