However, the more pressing risks are to be found in the danger that payment systems might collapse, liquidity bottlenecks might occur, and the number of credit defaults might increase, owing to Year 2000 problems on the part of banks’ customers.
For this reason, banking supervisors have alerted the banking industry to the possibility of significant changes in customers’ behaviour occurring at the end of 1999 as far as their demand for cash goes. A lack of public confidence in the ability of the financial sector to solve the Year 2000 problem could trigger increased withdrawals of deposits and demand for cash.