The simple average of the rates, however, declined to 2-3 percent after the start of the 1990s, and in the second half of the decade remained at 2-3 percent in the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy, and fell below 2 percent in the other G-7 countries.
Banks collectively have assigned over 1,000 in-house IT staff to fixing the problem, although this includes staff doing concurrent redevelopment work. There has been speculation about serious shortages of experienced staff, but nearly half of the banks in our survey did not plan to hire additional people for their projects, and only four expect to increase staffing by more than 10 per cent.