UK banks probably won’t be ready to join European Economic and monetary Union until at least 2005 because many will not even start getting systems ready until they have sorted the Year 2000 problem. A study by the Bank of England suggests that once they have sorted Year 2000 fixes, they will then need another three years to get ready for the Euro. Banks are also looking to the government for guidance as to whether the UK will enter EMU or not. However, this poses the question of what will happen next year, when many of the major European corporates start trading in Euros. Companies supplying or doing business with the likes of Siemens AG and SAP AG, will at the very least be required to quote prices in Euros, and there have been suggestions that EMU may creep in through the back door in the UK, as businesses that deal with other European partners, begin trading in Euros anyway. If the banks are not going to be ready, this will presumably put enormous strain on pan-European trading.
