The communiqué issued by the four Sponsoring Organizations at the close of the Round Table recommended that market participants from regions that have not yet vigorously tackled the problem should consider the need to invest significant resources in the short time that remains. The Sponsoring Organizations further recommended that external testing programs be developed and expanded and that all financial market supervisors worldwide should implement programs that enable them to assess the Y2K readiness of the firms and market infrastructures that they supervise. The Sponsoring Organizations urged telecommunications and electricity providers to share information on the state of their own preparations and encouraged market participants and supervisors and regulators to consider the need to develop appropriate contingency procedures. At the Round Table, a new private-sector initiative known as the Global 2000 Coordinating Group was announced. The aims of the Global 2000 effort are to identify and support coordinated initiatives by the global financial community to improve the Y2K readiness of financial markets worldwide. For example, current Global 2000 projects include the development of recommendations for financial infrastructure testing and guidelines for addressing Y2K compliance issues related to vendors and service providers. The Global 2000 Coordinating Group, which includes representatives from over 75 financial institutions in 18 countries, represents an extremely valuable private-sector attempt at cooperation on this important issue.
First, of course, is the fact that one cannot rely on a backup computer site for Y2K contingency if that site also uses the same software that is the cause of the Y2K problem at the main site. In some cases, it is impractical to build a duplicate software system from scratch simply to provide for Y2K contingency. In these cases, as a senior banker explained at one of our New York Y2K forums, contingency planning amounts to, “Testing, testing, and more testing.” Contingency planning can also be separated into components that are firm-specific and those that are market-wide. Each individual firm will need to develop its own contingency plans designed to maintain the integrity of its operations during the changeover to the Year 2000. The FFIEC has recently issued guidance to banks in the United States regarding the core elements of their own contingency planning.5 The Joint Year 2000 Council will also be developing a paper on contingency planning for the benefit of the global financial supervisory community. This paper will seek to address firm-level contingency as well as issues of market-wide contingency. 5  See www.ffiec.gov/y2k/contplan.htm BIS Review 56/1998  - 10 -  Market-wide contingency refers to the planning by participants and supervisors done to ensure that individual disruptions can be managed in ways that will prevent them from causing disruptions to critical market infrastructures.