Amidst all their other problems, just how well prepared are Japanese financial institutions for the millennium computer bug? After more than a year of debate and the odd testy exchange between banking officials and information officers across the Pacific some real evidence could soon be at hand.
If the Tokyo fixed-interest markets open at all on December 21 it will be at least a partial vindication of Japanese bankers' and regulators' confidence in the face of mounting criticism from counterparts in the US.
On Sunday December 20, Tokyo's BoJ-Net, which clears 90% of Japan's settlements, will move its clock forward to December 28 1999 and conduct a few hours of simulated trading, it will then march them forward again to January 4 2000, Japan's first business day of the new millennium. The tests will be linked with similar ones by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and the domestic funds-transfer system operated...
