Capital Briefs: Thrifts Seen Addressing Year-2000 Glitch

A survey released Thursday by America's Community Bankers finds that thrifts are eradicating the millennium computer bug from their own systems, but are doing little to verify that business borrowers are year-2000 compliant.

Of the more than 600 thrifts polled, 98% said they have appointed a senior official to coordinate year-2000 corrections and 97% have discussed the millennium bug with their boards. Also, 83% have written compliance plans and two-thirds either have or are developing contingency plans in case their systems are not ready.

But only one-third of thrifts that make business loans are assessing year-2000 risks during the underwriting process. Also, 23% of thrifts have not checked whether their vendors are year-2000 compliant.

Forty percent of the thrifts estimated their compliance costs: of those doing so, 90% with less than $100 million of assets expect to spend less than $100,000; and 36% with at least $1 billion of assets expect to spend more than $1 million.

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