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October 6, 1999 -
CUETS, like most companies worldwide, has been working
on the year 2000 problem for some time. It was apparent
to the Board of Directors as far back as 1996 that this
was a critical issue for our company, our customers, and
our business partners. The work was given the highest
priority and all necessary financial and human resources
were assigned to ensure success. The entire Year 2000
Project team worked extremely hard to meet our self-imposed
deadline for readiness of June 30.
We are very pleased to be able to state
that CUETS is now substantially ready for year 2000.
All of our major system-related work has been completed
on schedule. The status of the major elements of the
initiative are as follows:
| System |
Status |
| Card Systems |
Ready |
| Merchant Systems |
Ready |
| Host Systems Hardware and Operating
systems |
Ready |
| Point-of-Sale Terminals |
Ready |
| Internal Systems (Human Resources,
Payroll, General Ledger, Accounts Payable) |
Ready |
| Building Systems (Heating, Elevators,
Security Systems) |
Ready |
| Telecommunications Systems |
Ready |
A major milestone in CUETS year 2000
initiative was reached in June when we were awarded
year 2000 certification by MasterCard International.
The certification was awarded based on positive results
from the completion of the Host Systems testing program.
Performed in co-operation with MasterCard
International and several of our downstream processors,
this testing confirmed that our mission-critical systems
are ready for the year 2000 event.
Due to the complexity of distributed
systems and the many elements over which we have no
direct control it is only prudent to prepare for unforeseen
problems. Contingency planning at CUETS has been underway
since early 1999. A team of managers from all business
units within CUETS have worked to create detailed plans
and procedures for possible contingency events. The
plan will be tested in September 1999 to ensure that
it is workable and well understood by the staff.
Although work will continue throughout
1999 on cleanup and testing of non-critical systems,
we are now confident that CUETS will continue to provide
service to our customers up to and beyond the year 2000.
It must be remembered, however, that CUETS is dependant
on the readiness of many other parties and we cannot
guarantee that our service will not be affected by circumstances
beyond our control.
I hope that this will adequately address
any concerns you may have regarding the year 2000 readiness
of CUETS. If you require further information please
contact Kevin Smith, CUETS Year 2000 Coordinator, at
(306) 566-7642.
S.P. (Stan) Kuss, CEO
CU Electronic Transaction Services
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