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An Australian banker warns that bank software suppliers can create problems for individual banks. Conceivably, these suppliers can bring down the world's financial services industry.
Well, there is one thing we can do about this. We can write this guy off as a doomsayer.
This is from the AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW (May 1).
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Bank of Queensland managing director, Mr John Dawson, warned yesterday that the ignorance of some suppliers and customers to the millenium bug issue would almost certainly impact on the bank's operations. . . .
But Mr Dawson said the major worry was over the possible knock-on effect from suppliers and customers which were not as prepared.
The bank is developing a contingency plan to ensure continued operation of its critical systems in cases where suppliers are not compliant.
"We cannot give a categorical assurance that the Year 2000 problem will not affect the bank's operations," Mr Dawson said.
"We will never be able to certify that the whole of our organisation is Year 2000 compliant when there's the potential for non-compliance from those companies we deal with.
"If they are not Year 2000 compliant in the disciplines we are outsourcing to them, you won't be writing about the collapse of the Bank of Queensland, you'll be writing about the collapse of the financial services industry."
Functions which are in the process of being outsourced to other companies, including interbank clearing and credit card processing, are scheduled for completion in law later this year or early 1999. . . .
The bank is also attempting to limit the impact of other risks on its operations and is scrutinising the products and services delivered by vendors and service providers to the bank.
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