Question

As the end of the year 1999 approached, many people worried that banks and more specifically the banks' computers would not be able to read the year 2000 correctly. This was commonly known as the Y2K problem. Many people were concerned that their bank would lose the record of their deposits etc., and made plans to take most of their funds out of the bank.

Address the potential Y2K problem from the standpoint of bank risk. What kind of bank risk potentially could have been involved? Back to the end of the year 1999, how should the different banks have prepared for the potential risks?

Your short essay will be assessed based on the qualities of structured organization, grammatical expression, and logic flow. It should consist of no more than 400 words. You should state the word count at the end of the essay.

Answer 1

Y2K is the shorthand term for "the year 2000" commonly used to refer to a widespread computer programming

shortcut that was expected to cause extensive havoc as the year changed from 1999 to 2000.

Instead of allowing four digits for the year, many computer programs only allowed two digits (e.g., 99 instead of

1999). As a result, there was immense panic that computers would be unable to operate when the date descended from "99" to "00".

The potential Risks for the Banks are,

•People will panic and pull all of their money out of the bank before the end of the year.

• ATMs will not work

• People will temporarily lose access to cash.

• Banks will lose track of people’s money.

• People will get access to other people’s bank accounts.

A task force has been set up to monitor the progress and compliance with norms set to meet the needs. It is

taking precautions for a few thousand years in the systems now being programmed. After 1999 the software should

read 2000. After 2099 it should be 2100. After 2999 it should be 3000 and go up to the year 9999 smoothly. It has

been visualized that after 31.12.9999 it will be 1.1.10000 the next day.

. It is realized that several Indian banks have gone in for complex computerization programs and they must spare no

effort to comply with the Y2K norms before the end of the year as they play a crucial role in the economy.