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The Bank of Boston is a major U.S. bank. It has 50 million lines of code. When it began its y2k repair, says one representative, management thought it would be just a matter of hiring an outside team. It has turned into a terrifyingly complex project.
Worse: if they fix it, what will happen when they try to connect to any of 500 other organizations it shares data with? What if those computers are not year 2000-compliant? This problem has no answer at present. There is no widely accepted agreement even on so small a matter as where to place the four-digit century date: at the beginning or the end?
This bank is regarded as being at the forefront of y2k repairs. Citicorp has eight times as many lines of code.
The international banking system is at risk. Even if BankBoston finishes its fix, what good will that do if most of the other money center banks don't?
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