SBI officials claim that the bank had, in fact, established its event management setup to handle any Y2K problems during the millennium transition period much before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued instructions in this regard.

The RBI has asked commercial banks to set up event management centres (EMC) at their head offices, regional centres and computerised branches by December 15 to deal with any eventuality posed by the Y2K problem, including actions needed to minimise risks for the banking industry.

The bank's EMC setup, called the Y2K help and control centres (Y2KHCC), will be manned by core staff from December 27, 1999, to January 7, 2000. SBI officials say that a few customer meetings to make depositors and other clients of the bank aware about the Y2K problem have also been held in select branches across the country.

The bank has around 8,900 branches across the country, of which 1,800 are computerised. The SBI uses the Irish-developed BankMaster software application for its computerised branches. The BankMaster system is standardised throughout the country. SBI officials insist that the application is fully Y2K compliant and geared to handle any eventuality.

"Computerisation of SBI's banking network started in the early 1990s. We have segregated them as front office and back office branches, both of which are Y2K compliant. God forbid, if any problem due to Y2K does arise, we are confident of solving it without the system getting disturbed," an SBI official explained.

"The bank has commissioned an internal team to conduct a branch audit to test Y2K-compliance. SBI has also obtained a third party certificate for Y2K compliance from CMC Ltd," the official said.