Sincerely,
Tripp Rackley
Chairman and CEO
nFront, Inc.
nFRONT, INC.
YEAR 2000 READINESS Disclosure
Last Edited on: March 30, 1999
This is the Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure of nFront, Inc. It is made based on information available to nFront as of the date stated above, and it supersedes all prior Year 2000 disclosures or statements made by nFront.
Year 2000-(Y2K) readiness is a top priority at nFront, Inc. nFront's Internet banking system design began in 1995 and continues today. In response to the critical Year 2000 issue, nFront management and development set out to identify and address its current and future customers' Y2K concerns about nFront's software products. We have assembled a Year 2000 Project Team, comprised of representatives at various levels and skill sets from Sr. Management, Product Management, Development, Internet Banking Center, Support, Implementations, Accounting and Facilities Management.
We have substantially completed the replacement, modification or retirement of hardware or software components for nFront systems that were deemed by the Year 2000 Project Team to be vital to our core business processes and activities that we have identified as being at risk for Year 2000 failures. Our year 2000 readiness efforts will continue throughout 1999, with an emphasis on quality assurance.
Project Guidelines
There have been three driving principles in our Y2K project efforts, which guided our project management efforts throughout the company. These principles are:
- Minimize any Y2K related impact to our bank customers and their customers;
- Maintain Y2K readiness as a top business priority; and
- Work closely with our internal and external business partners to achieve Y2K readiness.
The nFront Year 2000 Project Team to date has:
- Established senior management advisory and review boards.
- Implemented a plan to address year 2000 concerns in material vendor relationships.
- Built tools for software and hardware inventory tracking, reporting and risk assessment.
- Provided periodic progress updates to senior management.
- Created a Year 2000 Readiness definition to be used as a goal and guide for our activities (copy attached).
- Implemented Y2K awareness and education activities for associates.
- Developed processes for communicating Y2K information to customers and vendors.
- Performed an assessment of nFront developed products for sensitivity to Year 2000 issues and tested these products.
Project Progress
Our project plan included several milestones for the completion of various tasks that facilitated nFront management's measurement of project progress. Some of these milestones and ongoing initiatives include:
Analysis:
- Completed corporate-wide process to inventory application and system software (in-house developed, vendor supplied, interfaces, etc.) and hardware (file servers, personal computers, etc.);
- Conducted a process to inventory internal equipment that uses embedded computer chips that may be date sensitive. Examples include building security systems, fire alarm systems, and HVAC; and
- Formulated action plans necessary to remedy identified date-related issues associated with the components related to these systems.
Remediation (replacement, modification or retirement of necessary components identified during the analysis):
- Upgraded hardware and software deemed vital to our on-going business by the Year 2000 Project Team to versions or releases identified by their vendors as Year 2000 ready or compliant;
- Implemented computer code changes for non-critical issues not affecting Y2K compliance; and
- Substantially completed remediation of identified Year 2000 issues in mission critical systems (systems that are vital to the successful continuance of core business activities). Remediation efforts were minor due to nFront's awareness of Year 2000 issues when our products were developed in 1995 and 1996.
General Application Testing:
- Installed dedicated test environments that attempt to emulate a year 2000 environment. Testing was performed on the century date change as well as other critical date rollovers such as leap year;
- Tested the revised application software using significant dates both before and after January 1, 2000; and
- Performed additional levels of validation tests.
Processor Interface Testing:
Testing was performed to validate the data import and export processes for those data processors that support nFront's standard Version 2 or Version 3 export file layouts. Pre-Y2K data was imported into nFront's system, and integrated systems testing was performed against this pre-Y2K data. The results of this testing provided a baseline for comparison against later integrated systems tests using post-Y2K data.
Aged Version 2 and Version 3 data was then created to represent the century date change, and other critical date rollovers such as leap year. The aged data was tested using the same integrated systems testing process used for the baseline testing mentioned above.
For those processors that were unable to support nFront's standard version 2 or version 3 export file layouts, testing was also performed to validate the conversion process that translates the data (frequently referred to as 'pull files') supplied by those processors into a standard format. Both baseline and aged data was converted and imported using the standard process in place today, and tested using the same integrated systems testing process mentioned above.
Preserving Compliance:
- Continue to validate that a component maintains its Y2K readiness throughout the remainder of 1999, after it has been tested and verified as being year 2000 ready; and
- Formulating plans to incorporate Y2K testing into the production migration process, to help prevent routine maintenance from adversely impacting our Y2K readiness.
Contingency and Business Continuity Planning
- Designed a corporate business continuity plan specific to year 2000 issues to address certain potential disruptions to business identified by the Year 2000 Project Team that may impact our customers, associates and business partners;
- Continue to test and refine, as necessary, our business continuity plans; and
- Developed consolidated readiness plans and schedules for business areas to enable us to react to such identified potential events that could impact normal business routines.
As part of the year 2000 readiness preparations at nFront, Inc. we are requesting that our customers, vendors, and other business partners participate in our readiness efforts. Efforts taken with respect to these stakeholders is as follows:
Customers and Business Partners
Our objective is to maintain our customers' and business partners' complete confidence. To communicate our progress to our customers, we plan to update this Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure as deemed appropriate by the Year 2000 Project Team, and we request that our business partners and customers to update us on their Year 2000 progress as well.
Vendors and Suppliers
Like numerous other businesses, many of our computer systems and business operations are provided and/or maintained by outside suppliers. nFront's key vendors and suppliers have been asked to demonstrate sufficient Y2K readiness. Testing of vendor supplied products that are critical to our operations are being conducted where feasible.
Business, Government and Industry
We continue to stay involved with a large range of business and financial organizations, as well as government agencies that share a common concern regarding the enormous scope of the Y2K challenge. The nFront team is dedicated to working together with our business partners to provide the best service possible to our collective customers.
This Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure is for information purposes only. It does not amend any existing agreement with you or provide you with additional warranties. It is not provided to you to induce you to do business with nFront in the future or continue to do business with nFront. As nFront's and its suppliers' activities are ongoing, this Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure is subject to change without notice. Please call John M. Moreland, VP Customer Service if you have any questions regarding this disclosure.
nFRONT, INC.
YEAR 2000 READINESS Definition
nFront's internally developed Internet banking products were designed and developed to handle the century date change. nFront has also established a Year 2000 Readiness Project to manage its Year 2000 efforts. The standard against which we will measure the ultimate success of our Year 2000 Project, and as a guide to formulating assessment, remediation and test methodologies, is defined as follows:
Project Guidelines
Neither the performance nor the functionality of any given product will be adversely affected by date data containing dates prior to, during or after the year 2000, provided that:
a. the product is used in accordance with its operating instructions;
b. the product is used in a computing environment that accurately exchanges date data with it;
c. other systems interfacing with the product maintain appropriate interfaces with it; and
d. other personal computers that interface with our products have been Y2K certified.
The criteria we will use for developing test methodologies to assess conformity to this standard are the following:
General Integrity -- No value for current date will cause interruptions in normal operation or function.
As the system date in the computing environment in which the product operates advances in the normal course, no date rollover (e.g., day, month, year, and century) should cause any interruptions in the normal operation or function of the product. The best recognized high-risk date rollover is the change to the year 2000. Other high-risk date rollovers include leap years and special dates such as: 12/31/99, 1/1/2000, 2/28/2000, 2/29/2000, 3/1/2000, 2/28/2001 and 3/1/2001.
Date Integrity -- The product must correctly manipulate, calculate and represent dates prior to, during and after the year 2000 for their intended purpose. nFront systems will display actual dates passed to us from third party bank processors and bank in-house systems.
This criterion relates primarily to the internal logic of the product and its ability to accurately process date data for its intended use. Reliable processing should occur over the range of date data (e.g., dates, durations, days of the week) that the product is intended to handle.
Interface Integrity -- The product must exchange date data in a manner that makes the century in any date unambiguous.
When the product interfaces with other components of the system or with another system, it must accept and generate date data. In doing so, it should resolve any ambiguity as to the century with other components within our system in a consistent manner and, where appropriate, it will display the date and century that is sent to us from other systems.
The product may meet this criterion by explicitly specifying the century in dates by using a four-digit year in all date elements or by using a base-and-offset representation of dates (i.e., using days, months or years relative to a fixed date) covering all relevant centuries.
Note: The foregoing Year 2000 Readiness Definition comprises certain guidelines that nFront believes provide a reasonable definition of Year 2000 readiness. This Definition is not a statement or warranty of the current or future state of nFront's products or internal processes.
