The decision is consistent with Bank Negara Malaysia's (BNM) decision to make Friday, 31 December 1999, a non-transaction day for the banking and insurance sector and 3 January 2000 a normal business day. As the stock market utilises the services of the banking sector for the settlement of traded securities, the tandem decisions by BNM and the SC would prevent any unnecessary hitches during the rollover.

The decision to make 31 December 1999 a non-trading day is to allow the exchanges, central depository and clearing houses to consolidate their databases and to conduct full backup of their systems and databases and to test the recoverability of the backups made. Under normal circumstances the back up and consolidation would go into the next month but as a precautionary measure to avoid any data loss, the exchanges and clearing houses will work to ensure that all data is processed before midnight on 31 December 1999.

The SC is continually reviewing and monitoring the readiness of the capital market computer systems for the year 2000. The market institutions have implemented Year 2000 ready systems, having completed remediation and rigorous internal and external testing and are now concentrating on additional testing and contingency planning.