The Hong Kong Monetary Authority ("HKMA") today releases the
December issue of the "Year 2000 Bulletin" as part of
its ongoing efforts to promote awareness and the sharing of sound
practices in addressing the Year 2000 ("Y2K") problem within the
banking industry in Hong Kong.
This issue of the Bulletin contains articles on the recent
supervisory initiatives to address the Y2K problem, the external
testing of interbank payment systems and the formulation of Y2K
contingency plans. The results of the formal statements of
compliance progress submitted by the chief executives of authorized
institutions ("AIs") are also included in this issue of the
Bulletin. These results indicated that as at end of September
1998:
- The percentages of AIs expecting to achieve compliance by
end-1998 for their critical and non-critical systems were 94% and
88% respectively;
- The overall percentages of completion for critical systems and
non-critical systems were 82% and 77% respectively; and
- On average, AIs had completed 98% of the assessment phase, 90%
of the modification phase and 71% of the testing phase with respect
to their critical systems.
Commenting on the results, Mr Y K Choi, Acting Deputy Chief
Executive of the HKMA, said that, "the latest survey results
suggest that the banking industry is making good progress in
resolving the Y2K problem. However, there remain a small number of
institutions which cannot achieve Y2K compliance by the end of 1998
as required by the HKMA. We have issued formal warning to these
institutions to require them to make every effort to achieve Y2K
compliance before end-March 1999. We will closely monitor the
compliance progress of these institutions. If necessary, the HKMA
will consider using its statutory powers in the Banking Ordinance
to enforce compliance with the deadline."
This Bulletin also includes an article on the results of the
external testing of the interbank payment systems conducted between
August and November 1998. No Y2K exceptions were identified
throughout the test. The Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited will
conduct two additional external testing sessions with users in
April and August 1999.
The Y2K problem will continue to be at the top of the HKMA's
supervisory agenda in 1999. In the next few months, the HKMA will
conduct additional examinations on selected institutions to ensure
that they take necessary steps to rectify their Y2K programme
deficiencies identified by the HKMA, and to develop a counterparty
assessment framework and contingency plan. If necessary, we may
require institutions to be subject to further independent
assessment to ascertain their compliance status.
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
31 December 1998
