Link to Article

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY

Toledo banks meet Y2K computer deadline

uly 1, 1999

BY JANE SCHMUCKER
BLADE BUSINESS WRITER

Toledo's major banks say they've met yesterday's federal deadline to have their computers ready for Jan. 1, 2000, and expect none of the problems some predict for the millennium changeover.

But just in case, some banks plan to have more cash on hand than ever before, and extra security to go with it.

Some of the area's top banking executives will be at their corporate data processing centers at 11:59 p.m. Dec. 31, instead of toasting the new century.

Mid Am Bank will have enough cash for each of its household customers to withdraw $300 to $500 more than usual before a holiday weekend, senior vice president Phil Clinard said. Extra security will be low-key so as not to scare customers, he added.

Fifth Third Bank declined to discuss its plans for cash at the end of the year because of security fears, and spokesman Karen Fraker said only that the bank would have extra money available.

The federal government has announced it will have an extra $50 billion or more in currency available to financial institutions.

Some, such as National City Bank, said yesterday they have not decided how much cash to order for the end of the year.

The concern is that many computer systems denote dates by the last two digits of the year and may interpret the "00" in 2000 as 1900, causing billing problems, malfunctions or even a computer shutdown.

Programmers have been working to rectify those programs, but finding each piece that needs to be fixed sometimes is not easy.

At least 95 per cent of the country's financial institutions are on track with the Federal Reserve Board's guidelines for year 2000 preparedness, said June Gates, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

The Federal Reserve does not give figures for regions of the country, but none in Ohio has been among the handful that were issued cease-and-desist orders because their plans for the year 2000 were not progressing according to federal orders, she said.

The next big project for many banks is convincing their customers that they have nothing to fear about recordkeeping over the new year.

KeyBank will include Year 2000 information in customer statements for the next six months, said Ken Baierl, public relations manager for KeyBank's Midwest Region.

Older people who remember bank failures during the Great Depression or aren't computer literate tend to worry most about Year 2000 issues, according to Jan Siotkowski, Mid Am's Y2K project manager, and Mr Clinard.

-- The Green Meanie (Not@Sista.Anymore), July 07, 1999

Answers

Green meanie,

My brother tried for a week to get an ATM card from a bank in Toledo. The bank informed him that the systems were down and that they could not process his request. He ask if they would take the information manually and they refused(could or would not take information that way). This happened within the last two weeks.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), July 07, 1999.

An Alligator went into a bar and ordered a sandwich. The bartender said we don't serve food in here. The alligator saw an old floozie sitting in the corner and went over and snapped her up in one gulp; came back to the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender said we don't serve drug addicts neither. The alligator said Hey, I'm not a drug addict! The bartender said, What about that bar-bit-u-ate?

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), July 07, 1999.