Since you SO nicely asked....

The bank that switched off their puters and ran today sans electronic aid is ALL FIRST Bank in Lancaster Ave. Specifically the Columbia Avenue branch although others may have been involved.

Stopping in at 3:15 I noticed perhaps one extra person behind the counter, no customers in sight, and EVERYONE counting cash and playing with paper. No indications of problems, no long faces, some laughing. I had no time to delve into details but on the face of it they seemed unstressed and it LOOKED like smooth sailing.

Hunted Saturday with a buddy who's wife works at FULTON bank in Lancaster County and I was told her bank is doing the same thing, although I can't say what day.

So.... thats it. I draw no conclusions. Will they run without puters? Seems like they will if need be. Will they run without power? Doubt it. No security = locked doors at All First bank.

Ok? Happy now? Want their phone number too??

-- Art Welling (artw@lancnews.infi.net), December 13, 1999

Answers

My bank told me they process several million checks each night. How can they do that "manually"? I believe interbank settlements run into the trillions of dollars per day (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). How many billions of hands would it take to process all of that "manually"? I believe this is another polly myth. But then, I know absolutely nothing about the banking business. Just my observations.

-- RPGman (tripix@olypen.com), December 13, 1999.

RPG:

I have no doubt that without power and computers the banking industry is at best, frozen, at worst, toast.

This is just one case of one small branch making it through one day without puters. It has nothing to do with check transfers and such.

-- Art Welling (artw@lancnews.infi.net), December 13, 1999.

Art,

Have brother in Lancaster. He said the stores are selling a thousand gallons of bottled water MORE per day than usual.

I suspect more people are prepping than this forum gives them credit for.

-- (Polly@troll.com), December 13, 1999.

I participated in a HazMat drill here a few months back. We had a toxic leak on a ferry, dead people all over the boat, hysterical passengers, helicopter drops of decontamination stuff, people overboard, you name it. We all had a GREAT time, they fed us, it was big-time fun. It was also extremely intense, adrenaline pumping, high voltage work. All we had was maybe 50 "passengers" and about 100 observers.

Now, if we REALLY had a toxic leak, and dead people, etc, I'm just guessing that maybe we wouldn't be having so much fun. Those boats carry 1500 or so, and I'm guessing that controlling 1500 might be a tad tougher than controlling 50. The adrenaline in a drill was fun, but I wouldn't want to see it for real.

Nice to hear that a bank did a drill, probably ran half a dozen each of their various transactions. It would have been a novel experience, few penalties for a mistake ("hey, we know you never did this before, we'll check it all on the computer tomorrow").

They might not have happy faces if it's just a thin line of scared cops between the bank and the shouting mob. They might not be giggling if they have 5 times their normal load of transactions, submitted by hysterical customers. Might not be so funny if all they can think about is their own savings at risk, and their own family who might or might not be able to get home through the crowds.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 13, 1999.

Good point, bw. I'd be willing to bet that they had problems at that bank.

-- (bank@on.it), December 13, 1999.

Art:

Hey, I live about an hour from Lancaster. Nice to see a GI so close.

My sister and my mother both work at Members First Credit Union and from what I gather they do not intend to do a "manual check". I'll keep bugging 'em about it, though.

On another note, my wife was as B.J's in Mechanicsburg, PA and they were VERY low on bottled water, rice, instant soup, cocoa. She asked the cashier why everything was looking bare and the cashier looked at her manager and just smiled at my wife. No answers. Wife just chuckled.

-- Familyman (prepare@home.com), December 13, 1999.

Art, My favourite tactic(in UK) to convince friends to GI has been to tell them to go into their bank & ask whether the bank is compliant.To a bank the answer has been a resounding yes.Then I say follow that by asking if they can guarentee processing any international payments.To a bank the answer is "No".

Then I say to the would be GI."Just think how many trillions of Dollars whiz through the international banking system everyday.What if that ceases?They turn GI in front of me.

Personally,I believe the dominoes will get you every time. This is usually enough to

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), December 13, 1999.

This may be the wrong place to post this, but I was wondering if banks use something called "routers" to control the flow of data interbank? (I'm sorry, but this router is something so outside my field that I'm not sure how to define it.) Reason I ask, my place of work was totally netless and e-mail-less today because the tech heads did a y2k upgrade on the voicemail system over the weekend. Seems the router, manufactured by Cisco, had a previously unknown y2k glitch that popped up when they tried to activate the new voicemail system -- installed because the old one would have started eating messages the instant they were left after the CDC. (Yes, that's right, we're still doing y2k upgrades with two weeks to go.) I'm no computer expert, but the guy who is says that if they hadn't done the test Saturday, they wouldn't have realized the problem until 1.1.00. He's saying no big deal, it's a FOF thing with a new router overnighted from the company and in place by tomorrow (Tuesday). Still, it makes me wonder how many other hidden glitches are out there waiting to pop.

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), December 13, 1999.

Thanks Art.

The thing to ask them is how they propagated the transaction data through their own bank, let alone to other banks. They can conduct business up to a point in the very short term, but all they're doing is storing all the bits of paper until the computers come back on and they can swipe them all through and actually perform the transactions.

Banks DO NOT KEEP paper records. When I worked in one (five years back) they sent out a daily microfiche record - for emergencies - from head office. How are they going to do even that much with no computers? Branches CANNOT operate independently.

It's commendable, but it's window dressing.

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), December 14, 1999.