While others are racing to beat the millennium bug, The Savings Bank of Rockville, Conn., is planning a party.
The party reception starts on Dec. 31, with the bank opening its vault at 12:05 a.m. Jan. 1, 2000. It's not that the bank isn't as concerned about Y2K as everyone else; bank officials just want customers to know they'll handle Y2K without any glitches.
Federal banking officials, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, have said there could be more problems from public panic about Y2K than any systems failures themselves. Some industry experts and regulators have recommended that bankers do what they can to alleviate public fears about the millennium arrival.
Despite the Y2K updates and the aggressive effort by many bankers to get the word out to consumers, public confidence regarding the millennium is still shaky.
"According to a recent survey, more than 20 percent of respondents believe that the entire banking system will crash as a result of Y2K glitches," says U.S. Comptroller John Hawke.
Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said they would probably withdraw all of their money from banks and two out of three said that they were planning to withdraw at least some extra cash. Forty percent agreed with the proposition that ATMs won't work come Jan. 1, 2000.
"This is a very unusual event. We've been working on this very seriously, so we thought we would have a party to celebrate," says Laurie Rosner, vice president and marketing officer for the Connecticut bank, which has 10 branches in the state.
In addition to planning the vault opening party itself, the bank has also distributed press releases announcing the party - complete with brightly covered confetti in the 8x11 envelope. The idea was to grab the attention of local and trade press which receive a mountain of releases every week.
"To make the announcement stand out, we wanted to include an unusual element," Rosner says. "Sameness doesn't sell. We wanted to do something different."
When seeking press attention, it's also important to view announcements through a reporter's eyes. So she included a folder with the release, making it easy to file, and included space on the release for a reporter to take notes. The party, by invitation only, will be held in the bank's main office lobby. If the vault doesn't open at midnight, bank President William J. McGurk says he will "personally donate $250 to local charity and the bank would add $1,000."
Along with the press releases, the bank issued letters to customers about the bank's Y2K preparations and held seminars discussing the issue.
Additionally, bank president McGurk has agreed to interviews with local radio stations discussing Y2K and the bank's readiness.
The bank would not have taken this stance if it weren't confident its systems would be ready for the new millennium. Yet Rosner and McGurk admit there could be an element beyond the bank's control that would prevent the vault from opening at the designated time.
"Some people in this (marketing) position are afraid to answer the tough questions," Rosner says. "We're ready to answer the tough questions."
Even if there is a problem, McGurk thinks it will last only a couple of days. "We've had worse disruptions with winter storms and hurricanes in the Northeast," he says.
(Laurie Rosner, Savings Bank of Rockville, 860/871-1858, ext. 205; http://www.sbr.com)