PC banking to exceed 7.5 Million by 2001 A new- report from Data- monitor Europe forecasts a massive ‘3 million rc- tail banking customers by 200 1 - the current number is under half a million so it represents an AAGR 01 75.x’% 3 rate much higher than the 1994-96 period. Cur- rently, retail deposits of PC banking are estimated to be around SlObn for European customers.

The report “European Direct Banking - A Net To Catch the Customer” - shows that not surpris- inglv Switzerland has Eur- ope’s highest penetration of PC banking customers: 0.4%. This \\ill remain the

highest penetration rate for Europe with around 6.9% using the semicc by 200 I,

Switzerland is fol- lowed closely by the Scandinavian countries. The Netherlands, IIK and Germany. German) has the highest number of PC banking customers

at some l-i.3 000 and will post the highest number overall by 2001 at around 2.5 million. The report is priced at Al995 and available now.

Corztact: Sophie S 111 i t h , tel: + 44 (0) /‘I 6Z.5 8548; &ix: + 44 (0) I 71 6.25 5080.

Unexpected glitches in SF voice mail.... In the IIS and increas- ingly elsewhere. voice mail (\%a) is a modern “must ha\,c” for many businesses. But recently one LJS city found out what it \vas like to be deprived of this useful

asset. In San Francisco PacBell is proud to sa) that its \:hl system has been proofed against what was adj~~dged to

be the worst case scenar- io, i.e. an earthquake, but it had to come clean on a new twist in the tale.

As a result of some recent changes quite a few customers haw been plagued by VM “glitches”

ranging from slowetl- down message play-back to intermittent a~ailabil- ity. Apparently, PacBell had moved some eight) thousand VM boxes in the 40X code area to a different mainframe com- puter. It put them all on the same system so peo- plc could transfer mes- sages from work to home. Whilst for many this was beneficial and the)- experienced no ser- vice problems, many suf- fered from weird faults. These ranged from mes- sages played back at a slower rate to no mes- sage at all. Some VM

lmxc-s were intermit- tently available each da) for several weeks.

Meanwhile, questions ha!~ been asked as to why PacBell made such a drastic change without a safety net system. It said it had a back-up system but it was “not fault tolerant”.

Other agencies have since offered help before PacBell makes a similar upgrade to its LA area VM but independent obser- vers expect that this will not be the last time VM is plagued by unusual faults.

Computer thefts hit Whitehall for E2m Over &2 million of 11‘ equipment has been lost or stolen from gov- ernment departments in what the I.abour Party has branded ;I ‘ ’ c 0 in p ~1 t c r c,rimc wa\.e”.

The figures were ob- tained by Labour’s En- ployment spokesman, Ian McCartnejT. from the go\.ernment depart- ments through written Commons questions.

Worst hit was the ‘I’rcasur!. which lost &699 -300 worth of 1’1’ goods:‘more than half of it from the Inland Revenue.

Few department3 were unaffected; t hc Department for Educa- tion and Employment lost computer equip- ment worth &+3-i 000. thr D’fI .A.?‘5 000

worth, and the environ- ment department S18.3 614, a n tI S.236 888 from the Home Office, the de- partment responsible for law and order.

A grand total of .&2 086 604 worth of IT equipment out of’ a total loss of goods worth 56 197 559.

Computer Audit Update l April 1997 . I 1997, $17.00 Elsevier Science Ltd.

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