Banks reveal all in Y2K Web disclosures

Five major banks are to use the Internet to reveal just how prepared they are for the millennium date change.

DBS Bank of Singapore and UBS of Switzerland, as well as Citibank, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch from the US, are to publish disclosures on their own Web sites. These will link to the site of Global 2000, a grouping of 180 major financial institutions dedicated to preparing for the date change.

Although the financial community has generally been aware of problems associated with the date change - and in most cases, better funded than other sectors - there is still some concern that banks could let down suppliers and customers by failing to be completely Year 2000 compliant. The full disclosure planned by these Global 2000 members is meant to allay these fears.

A spokesman for Global 2000 told Silicon.com: "JP Morgan's information is already posted, and that of UBS will be up within a week. We're hoping to get a snowball, peer pressure kind of effect."

John Thirlwell, director at the British Bankers' Association and member of the Global 2000 steering committee, said: "I hope this does snowball. We need to kill the paper chase and show just how advanced the banks are."

Global 2000 is calling on financial institutions to release results of their assessments as soon as possible. More information is available at www.global2k.com.