watch -- on the lookout for systems that fail to recognise today's Leap Year date.

But after the Millennium bug failing to strike at the heart of Bermuda's systems, there seems to be little to worry about.

Secretary to the Cabinet, Leopold Mills II, said that the same systems used for the roll-over from 1999 to 2000 would be in operation today.

He said: "February 29 is regarded as the next big test date. We are cautiously optimistic that those steps which we used in December will survive as well today.

"We have taken the appropriate steps and have our fingers crossed.'' Unlike the year 2000 issue, in which the use of two-digit years was a standard programming flaw in old code, a Leap Year coding error results because programmers have an incomplete understanding of leap-year rules.

Bank of Bermuda were also aware of the potential problems which could arise with computers not recognising the existence of February 29.

In a statement issued at 4 p.m. yesterday, the spokeswoman for the bank said:" Within the next few hours our Asian operation will begin their start of the day for the Leap Year. To date no major issues have been identified and wellness checking continues.

"Our Global Communications Centre will continue to monitor the start of day activities for our Asian operations. We will also continue to monitor counterparties and market activities around the globe.'' In America the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion and the Year 2000 Information Coordination Centre will begin dismantling their operations next month.

John Koskinen, chairman of the president's council said: "It is a completely different problem, but it was rolled into the Y2K rubric because people did not want to work on two separate projects.'' The US government expects few if any problems, and the coordination centre will not operate around the clock as it did during the 1999-to-2000 transition period.

The centre will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST for the next three days.

After that, it will revert to standard business hours until it closes for good at the end of March.

Three rules apply for determining the occurrence of a Leap Year: A leap year occurs in years divisible by four; most years divisible by 100 are normal years; the exception is any year divisible by 100 and 400, which is a leap year.

For example, 2000 and 2400 are leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not.

"It turns out that there were people who knew Rule 1 and 2. Most people did not know Rule 3," Koskinen said.

Some errant programming may cause glitches, he said, but the errors would likely occur in application software, not operating systems or hardware.

In London, the UK Government watchdog for the Millennium bug warned of the dangers of some systems not recognising the date.

It highlighted 21 software packages which it claims may experience problems because they do not recognise 2000 as a leap year.

Action 2000 said: "Systems may miss out or reject the valid leap year date or reject it as invalid input. Conversely they may permit invalid dates such as February 30 or 31.'' Action 2000 also warned a system which missed February 29 could cause problems at the end of the year.

BUSINESS BUC