place to deal with the compliance issue for the year 2000, local experts say there are bound to be problems.

Insurers may have taken the lead in addressing the issues, but banks and the telephone company have also been working on the issue for some time.

J&H (Bermuda) Ltd. vice president Paul Rowlerson warned the issue is broader than most people understand.

He said, "People have to also think about their building security systems and elevators. The elevators in our building are controlled by a computer that allows access to people at certain times of the day. That won't work in the year 2000 unless it is fixed.

"People will overlook other little things like that. They will tackle the main business applications for the year 2000, because that's what they are focused on. Then on the first of January in the year 2000, they won't be able to get into their buildings.

"We get asked by our clients if we have thought of this as an issue, and we are getting a series of letters from their auditors asking the same question.

Luckily, we are able to say that we have. US Fortune 500 companies are said to be spending between $10 million and $14 million each. So this is a very real problem with a large, and unmovable deadline.'' Bermuda Telephone Company Ltd. assistant vice president, information systems, John Dill said, "We're not that concerned about it, because we have been aware of the problem for years and our software supplier will resolve the problem during a series of upgrades we are scheduled to take.

"Functionality will change anyway, so Microsoft will have to update us as we go along. We started ages ago updating the programmes we have developed in house. But most of it is software we bought.

"Most companies here do not have large development shops. So it will hit the software house rather than the company.'' The Bank of Bermuda's senior vice president systems operations, Peter Le Noury, said that with the use of external vendors, the main layered software on the bank's computer cluster is already compliant.

He added, "The only issue is the systems we built ourselves. Two of them are compliant and two are not. But it will take about a hundred man days of effort to both of those to put them compliant.''