The head of the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has called on some sort of central authority to ensure Bermuda companies are dealing with solving the Year 2000 computer problem.

"There has to be some coordinated effort to ensure Bermuda is on the road to compliance,'' BMA General Manager Malcolm Williams said in an interview yesterday. "My concern is that there is as yet no person or body who has been appointed as a commander in chief to oversee compliance.'' He said the initiative could come from government or from a number of associations such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Bermuda International Business Association.

His comments came on the eve of a Millennium Summit of top executives being held to discuss the problem this morning at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.

The Year 2000 problem refers to a glitch in computer chips which causes computer software and hardware to misread dates as being in the 1900s rather than in the 2000s.

The BMA is already on the way to being compliant Mr. Williams said and will get an independent assessment and test of its systems.

Just to be safe the BMA is ordering more cash to be ready in case the banks systems fail and automated teller machines are unable to distribute money.

"I don't want to appear to be an alarmist,'' Mr. Williams said. "I am just being ultracautious because of the nature of my job and the nature of the authority. We have to cover worse case scenarios.'' He also said regulatory authorities from four European countries have already written the BMA to ask whether the Island's financial institutions were Year 2000 compliant and if not when they might be.

Mr. Williams said he has replied that the three banks have indicated that the problem is being addressed. He said that regulatory authorites were taking the lead in making sure financial institutions were on their way to becoming compliant.

"We have got to move from the mode of just encouraging and coaxing,'' he said.