Many of those present agreed that greater disclosures would be helpful. However, there was skepticism that a standardized disclosure format would be effective in eliciting meaningful information for a wide class of financial firms, given the complexity and variety of Y2K issues facing these firms worldwide. It was also noted that disclosure which relies primarily on a firm’s own subjective assessments of its Y2K problems inevitably will suffer from an optimistic bias. In addition, most Y2K efforts will not reach the serious testing phase until 1999. The purpose of the testing will be to uncover areas where additional work is required, so that the first round of tests can be expected to encounter problems. In this environment, it may be difficult for firms themselves to assess the true state of their Y2K preparations. Also, firms who believe they are going to be ready will be directed by legal counsel not to make too strong a statement to avoid liability claims in case of unforeseen problems. On the other hand, firms that do not believe they can get ready in time will seek to avoid stating this clearly to protect their activities during 1999. For all of these reasons, I am doubtful that specific, reliable information on the state of Y2K preparations by individual firms worldwide will become publicly available. Finally, in the area of improving preparedness, I have saved the most important topic for last -- namely, testing.
In the next portion of my remarks, I would like to address each of these roles in turn. Efforts to Promote Awareness The Joint Year 2000 Council is undertaking a series of initiatives that may be described under the heading of promoting awareness. By this term, I do not mean to include only those initiatives aimed at raising general awareness, although that too is still needed in some cases. I mean to include efforts to promote better awareness of the many efforts currently under way to BIS Review 56/1998  -5-  tackle the Y2K problem. I have found that, while many organizations are working hard on various aspects of the Y2K challenge, in many cases these efforts would be enhanced by a greater degree of information sharing with others. For example, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, we have been holding quarterly Y2K forums with a diverse set of financial organizations in the area. Participants have requested that we continue to hold these meetings -- in fact, to hold them even more frequently -- because they believe that the contacts and the exchange of views are broadly beneficial. We hope to use the Joint Year 2000 Council to achieve similar goals. Each of the members of the Joint Year 2000 Council has committed to help play a leading role in promoting awareness of Y2K initiatives within their region.