Lobby group urges euro compliancy

The government is being urged to encourage companies to switch to euro-compliant IT systems, writes Lisa Kelly.

Philip Virgo, secretary general of parliamentary IT lobby group Eurim, said in the aftermath of year 2000, the government 'should plan large-scale training and assistance programmes to help small firms move to euro-compliant, multi-currency, ecommerce-enabled systems'. They must not wait for any decision on whether the UK is to join the single currency.

Companies should plan for early conversion to such multi-currency systems, as future Internet transactions in Europe are likely to be in dollars, Virgo said.

'UK companies should take the opportunity of the downturn in demand for IT skills after 2000, and move fast to a simple global ecommerce system,' Virgo added.

Nick Jones, research director at GartnerGroup, said this view is rather simplistic. 'Ecommerce is not necessarily bound up with the euro or dollar. It is independent of the euro and whether Britain is in or out,' he said.