There is a further factor that compounds the situation: Germany and the other member states of the forthcoming European Monetary Union must deal with the dual challenge of preparing their computer programs for the changeover to the single European currency and at BIS Review 93/1998  -2-  the same time take the necessary preparations for the century date change.
Numerous parallels show up here, and what we nowadays call “synergy effects” are the result. They will surely be limited, yet they do clearly exist, such as in cashless payments. For one thing, there is a heightened awareness of how to handle such crosscountry and cross-system conversion processes, for which there is hardly any historical precedent.