Fears that computers might fail to recognise February 29th, 2000, as a leap year day and cause problems for the world's economies proved about as groundless as those about the millennium bug.
Few problems were reported yesterday in Asia or Europe, though Japan suffered a series of embarrassing mishaps and admitted it had been careless.
Chief government spokesman Mr Mikio Aoki said the government had let its guard down after the new year had passed with only a few millennium bug glitches. "Because everything went well then, there is no denying we were negligent this time," he said.
Under the calendar Pope Gregory XIII introduced in 1582, February has an additional, 29th day in those years that are divisible by four except when the year is divisible by 100. The only exception is when the year is divisible by 400. Thus 2000 is the first leap year of its kind since 1600.
European financial markets reported no problems. "We are very confident," said a spokeswoman at the Paris bourse, adding that tests carried out last year had embraced the leap year problem as well as the millennium bug.
It was the same at the Eurex futures market in Frankfurt, the world's largest. "Everything is normal," a spokesman said. "We did our leap year tests last year."
In Japan, the main problem was the failure of about 1,200 post office cash dispensers out of a total of 25,000. Japan's weather bureau also reported errors in computers processing temperature and rainfall data in 43 offices around the country.
In New Zealand, there were minor problems in the banking sector.