Asia's leading stock markets on yesterday confidently pronounced themselves to be Y2K compliant and fully ready for what is expected to be a bumper year of trading.
Most of the region's bourses, the majority of which do not resume business until tomorrow, spent the weekend carrying out simulated trading in a bid to guarantee that computer systems would not crash under the weight of a regular day's buying and selling.
In Bangkok, the "Big Test" involved simulating trading volumes of more than a billion dollars -- ten times the daily average.
"The success of [the] `Big Test' confirmed that the systems of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, member companies and all relevant industry players are fully Y2K compliant and ready for trading on January 4," SET president Vicharat Vichit-Vadakan said.
"Investors can rest assured that it will be business as usual for securities trading that day."
The Philippine Stock Exchange, which does reopen today, said two days of mock trading involving two thirds of member-brokers had not revealed any hitches.
"There was no report of any problems encountered, all our systems are running smoothly," Eefren Sirno, head of the PSE's automated trading group, said.
Brokers in Manila, as elsewhere, said the absence of any serious Y2K problems could help shares start the year with a rally.
All 486 trading members of the Hong Kong stock exchange participated in simulated transactions of more than HK$300 billion (US$38.46 billion), said spokeswoman Lorraine Chan,
"Our system and our members' went through the healthiness check successfully and it proves that our system is Y2K ready."
The stock exchange has spent more than 30 million Hong Kong dollars on Y2K compliance since 1996.
There was a more cautious message from Australia, where the Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) warned that it was too early to say the Y2K specter had been banished.
"We probably won't find out for a while because they'll all be doing their own private testing and won't let us know that there's a problem until Tuesday," ASIC spokeswoman Irene O'Brien said.
The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) however said its critical systems were fully operational following the date change.
About 30 officials carried out a final check on the trading system at the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
"We are conducting mock buying and selling transactions with participation of member brokerage firms by creating the same environment as Jan. 4," a spokesman said. "We have experienced no trouble so far."
However, several Japanese securities companies yesterday did experience minor computer problems in Y2K-related tests of their links to the Tokyo Stock Exchange in an otherwise glitch-free test run among Japan's financial institutions.
Up to a dozen Japanese brokerages reported having problems in back office systems developed by Nomura Research Institute Ltd and used by a total of 27 client brokers. The problems were "possibly related to Y2K," said NRI spokeswoman Ai Ohara.
Affiliate Nomura Securities Co, Japan's largest brokerage, uses a different system.
Malfunctions were caused because the date-settings in the "BIOS" program were not changed in terminals used by brokerages running the NRI-designed back office system, Ohara said.
BIOS is a relatively common computer program, and the glitch didn't occur during tests conducted by NRI last year ahead of the millennium rollover, she added.
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