Perhaps even more illustrative of their understanding of the problem, is that banks, more than any other group, have invested in communicating directly to the community what Y2K is all about and what they, the banks, are doing about it. Midland Bank in the UK was a primary sponsor of one of the most important Y2K conferences held to date. On March 30th 1998, Prime Minister Tony Blair keynoted at this conference and spoke at length about the Y2K problem. Midland Bank's contribution to the awareness of the problem was significant. Their efforts through this conference, and the tens of thousands of informative brochures they produced, will not only create confidence in their own efforts, but will also point the way for other companies to achieve compliance.
Similar efforts are underway throughout America.
Not all the news from the Financial Industry is heartening, some of it could even be described as somewhere between disappointing and frightening. In April of 1998, the Basle Committee on Bank Supervision released a report on the levels of preparation of the banking systems in 40 countries. Of the 40 countries mentioned in the report, only 9 had preparations initiated prior to 1997. These findings were confirmed by another survey of the top 1000 banks world-wide, performed and reported by financial magazine eBanker. Of the top 100 banks, only 73 completed the survey, out of which only 41 expressed confidence that their efforts to achieve compliance would be complete by the end of this year.