Online banking starts to click: Financial giants cut fees to woo lucrative Web customers

Mortgage Loan Corporation, Salt Lake City, UT. Formed with the staff of LeaseRite, Inc., it will allow UniWest to diversify into equipment leases, term

loans, operating lines of credit, accounts receivable, as well as commercial real

estate/mortgage services. Warren L. “Mont” Gates, founder and President of

LeaseRite, will manage the new division, which will also be staffed by

Judith Martschenko, Colleen Monk and Dan Bartnicki.”

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Correction: Holiday Gift: The Journal of Equipment Lease Financing

Ms.Levin is on vacation.

“I will be out of the office until Jan. 6, 2003 and will check email occasionally. For Foundation information please visit the website, www.leasefoundation.org or contact Nadine Aly at naly@elamail.com, 703-527-8655. If you would like, you may leave me a voicemail at 703-516-8363. Happy Holidays!”

This means is you want to subscribe to the Journal of Equipment Lease

Financing as a Christmas gift for yourself, or for a colleague, you need to

contact naly@elamail.com

You can send a card to the recipient that you have subscribed a magazine that not only has the latest education news but forecasts, studies, in depth articles. Perhaps the perfect gift for your colleague, or if someone asks you want you would like for Christmas, it's not too late to add a subscription to the Journal of Equipment Lease Financing may be the perfect gift!

$40 a year, a subscription to the Journal helps support the industry and support ongoing education of your employees.

The Foundation will provide a special holiday gift certificate with your subscription.

You may e-mail the certificate or print to put into an envelope.

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Venserve/SalesStream/Dan Sullivan

Warburg Pincus funded a small fledging venture called Venserve with

seed capital well over 10 Million. In order to shed their failing attempt,

they changed the name to SalesStream hoping to redirect efforts upriver.

ABB as one of their main lenders was recently acquired by GE. GE with their

swift assimilation have all but closed the credit window causing SalesStream

to under perform again. I have now heard they have been unseated by a

little known startup called Gresham Financial Services. I have also heard

Dan Sullivan formerly from Rockford and AMEX is VP of Credit and Operations.

Maybe a call to 949 597 9100 will gather some addition facts.

Name Withheld.

(Mr. Sullivan is on vacation, we were told, and will not be back until after December 31^st. editor )

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Ameriana Bancorp to Boost Reserves 4Q re: Commercial Money Center

(Nasdaq:ASBI) announces that it will set aside additional reserves of up to $5.6 million in the Company's fourth quarter ending December 31, 2002. This action will reduce fourth quarter after-tax net income approximately $3.4 million or $1.08 per share, resulting in a net loss for both the quarter and full year. In 2001, Ameriana reported net income of $1,216,000 or $0.39 per diluted share for the fourth quarter and full-year net income of $3,800,000 or $1.21 per diluted share.

Approximately $4.7 million of the additional reserves to be set aside pertain to Ameriana's investment in a pool of leases acquired from the Commercial Money Center ("CMC"), a now-bankrupt equipment leasing company. Ameriana originally purchased two separate pools of equipment lease receivables totaling $12,000,000 from CMC in June and September 2001, of which approximately $10,900,000 currently remains unpaid. Each lease in the pools was backed by a surety bond issued by one of two insurance companies rated at least "A" by Moody's Investors Services. The bonds guaranteed payment of all amounts due under the leases in the event of default by the lessee. Each pool was sold under a Sales and Service Agreement by which the insurers serviced the leases. In each case, the insurers assigned their servicing rights and responsibilities to Commercial Servicing Corporation, an affiliate of CMC, which also has filed bankruptcy. When the lease pools went into default earlier this year, one insurer made payments for several months under a reservation of rights while the other refused to make any payments. Both insurers now claim they were defrauded by CMC and are denying responsibility for payment.

Ameriana is one of a number of financial institutions around the country that purchased interests in lease pools from CMC. All of the CMC lease pools are in default and in litigation. The Federal Panel on Multi-District Litigation has taken control over most of the federal actions involving the insurers of the lease pools and has assigned them to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, for consolidated pre-trial purposes.

Commenting on the announcement, Harry J. Bailey, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ameriana, said, "While we continue to believe that the surety bonds are enforceable against the insurers and that we will ultimately prevail in litigation, we also have concluded that recovery may take an extended period of time and may require significant legal expense. Because of these challenges, and our understanding of the conservative posture that industry regulators will likely assume as this matter develops further, we have determined that it is appropriate to take additional reserves against the leasing pools at this time. As a result of the action we announce today, we have now increased our reserves on the lease portfolio to 50% of the currently outstanding amount. With specific reserves at this level, we believe that the lease portfolio will not have a significant impact on earnings in future periods."

Bailey noted that the Company's regulatory capital is expected to remain well above required levels at December 31, 2002.

Ameriana Bancorp is a bank holding company. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Ameriana Bank and Trust, the Company offers an extensive line of banking services and provides a range of investments and securities products through branches in central Indiana and in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area. As its name implies, Ameriana Bank and Trust also offers trust and investment management services, has interests in Family Financial Life Insurance Company and Indiana Title Insurance Company, and owns Ameriana Insurance Agency, a full-service insurance agency.

(It is reported that NetBank, parent of Republic Leasing of Southern California,

has a claim for $80 million in the Commercial Money Center bankruptcy filing.

There are also many other such companies who are looking for the “insurance

syndicate” to make them “clean.” However, the three major insurance companies

have cross suits now filed in Cleveland, Indiana, claiming exclusion to the

claims on many grounds from improprieties to fraud. Editor )

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Association of Consumer Vehicle Lessors Announces Consumer Vehicle Lease Volume Down 14.5% in 2002 -- Down 50% since 2000!

NASHVILLE, Tenn., -- New lease volume for the period Jan. - Nov. 2002 for the largest national lessors declined 14.5% from the same period in 2001 according to a survey conducted by The Association of Consumer Vehicle Lessors (ACVL). A prior ACVL survey of the full year volume change from 2000 to 2001 found a 40% drop. When combined, these surveys indicate that there has been about a 50% drop in lease volume since 2000!

The results, announced today, showed member lessors purchased 2.07 million leases for the same 2001 period compared to 1.78 million YTD in 2002.

Although the overall 2001/2002 decline was 14.5%, the average respondent's volume declined somewhat less, 10.5%. This would indicate that, on average, larger lessors had greater declines than smaller ones. Not all respondents had reduced volume: 29% of member lessors experienced an increase in volume averaging 25.6%.

Bank lessors saw their volume decline 19%, compared to 14% for manufacturer captive finance companies. "There were a number of factors contributing to lower lease volumes," explained Rob Mize, ACVL President, "including the 0% manufacturer promotional loan finance rates and other very low interest rates, lower residual values (causing higher monthly payments), fewer manufacturer lease promotions, and the retraction of some bank lessor programs by withdrawing from some states and/or being more selective in approving lease applications."

Exhibit 1

Jan. - Nov. 2001 vs. Jan.- Nov. 2002 New Lease Volume

2001 2002 # Diff. % Diff. Avg.

Unweighted

New Lease

Change N

All Respondents 2,078,183 1,776,056 -302,127 -14.5% -10.5% 18

Banks 388,379 314,747 -73,632 -18.9% -25.9% 8

Captives 1,689,804 1,461,309 - 228,495 -13.5% 1.9% 10

Although the attention of consumers and dealers has shifted away from leasing, leasing still offers consumers a variety of advantages including:

* Protection from continued volatility in used car prices and the

possibility of unexpected depreciation;

* Avoidance of the hassles of negotiating a trade-in value when the

consumer wants a new vehicle;

* Reduced sales tax in most states since the tax is only paid on the lease

payments rather than the full price of the vehicle.

In addition to providing the vehicle return/walkaway option that protects consumers from unexpected depreciation, most leases offer a fixed price purchase option so that consumers can capture the "up side" (by trading or purchasing the vehicle at lease end) if depreciation is less than expected.

"With the sizeable reduction in lease volume, there will be many fewer vehicles in vehicle auctions 3 years from now," notes Raj Sundaram, President of Automotive Lease Guide. "That increases the likelihood that used car prices may rebound creating an upside for consumers who lease their vehicles today."

Consumers looking for further information on whether leasing or financing better meet their needs should visit the ACVL "Leasing vs. Buying Quiz" and the accompanying "Leasing vs. Buying" comparison. See ACVL.com.

The ACVL was founded in 1993. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, the ACVL is a national trade association for the largest manufacturer and import distributor captive finance companies, banks, and independent leasing companies whose primary goals include increasing consumer understanding of lease benefits and responsibilities through improved disclosure.

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Commerce Bancshares, Inc. Signs Definitive Agreement to Purchase the Vaughn Group, Inc.

ST. LOUIS----Commerce Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:CBSH) announced that it signed a definitive agreement to purchase The Vaughn Group, Inc., a direct lessor of equipment based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Vaughn Group, Inc. (Vaughn) has a lease portfolio of approximately $38.7 million consisting mainly of data processing hardware. In addition, Vaughn services approximately $425 million of lease agreements for other institutions involving capital equipment ranging from production machinery to transportation equipment. Vaughn employs 25 people and in addition to Cincinnati, Vaughn has sales offices in Toledo, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois. The purchase will be consummated by a merger of The Vaughn Group into CBI Leasing, Inc., a subsidiary of Commerce Bancshares, Inc.

The acquisition has been approved by the Boards of Directors of Commerce Bancshares, Inc., The Vaughn Group, and also the Federal Reserve and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2003. Terms of the definitive agreement were not disclosed.

"We believe this acquisition will be an excellent complement to our existing commercial leasing business," said David W. Kemper, Chairman & CEO, Commerce Bancshares, Inc. "We have had a long-term commitment to the commercial leasing needs of our customers in our existing markets, which are similar to those serviced by The Vaughn Group. This acquisition will enable Commerce to grow market share by offering some new products that Vaughn brings to our existing customers, while expanding our presence in the Midwest."

"The Vaughn Group has a strong reputation, earned by superior customer service. We welcome our new customers and look forward to providing them with the same high service levels as they have become accustom to, in addition to other commercial banking services they may need," added Kemper.

"Commerce has a reputation for providing high quality financial products and services in the commercial leasing arena," said John Handelsman, President and CEO, of The Vaughn Group. "We are happy to join an operation as solid, and well-positioned as Commerce."

About Commerce Bancshares, Inc.

Commerce Bancshares, Inc. is a $13.2 billion regional bank holding company (NASDAQ:CBSH) offering a full line of banking services, including business and personal banking, wealth management and estate planning and securities brokerage through its affiliate banks. Commerce Bancshares operates in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois with more than 340 locations and also has operating subsidiaries involved in mortgage banking, credit related insurance, venture capital and real estate activities.

CONTACT:

Commerce Bancshares, Inc.

Jeffery Aberdeen, 816/234-2081

Web Site: www.commercebank.com

Email: mymoney@commercebank.com

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Wells Fargo Financial Leasing to Acquire Assets of Telmark, Lease Financing Subsidiary of Agway

DES MOINES, Iowa and SYRACUSE, N.Y.,-- Wells Fargo Financial Leasing, Inc., Telmark LLC and Agway Inc. today announced the signing of a definitive agreement in which Wells Fargo Financial Leasing, Inc. would purchase substantially all of the assets of Telmark LLC, Agway's agricultural lease financing subsidiary. The purchase is expected to close by March 1, 2003.

The acquisition includes approximately $650 million in lease receivables and is subject to obtaining appropriate approvals, including the approval of the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York. On October 1, 2002, Agway Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Telmark was not included in Agway's Chapter 11 filing.

Telmark, based in Syracuse, NY, offers lease financing for equipment, buildings and vehicles within the contiguous 48 states and serves approximately 20,000 farmers, related agricultural businesses and numerous segments of the commercial business marketplace. Telmark is a wholly owned subsidiary of Syracuse-based Agway Inc., an agricultural cooperative owned by 69,000 Northeast farmer-members.

Wells Fargo Financial Leasing, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wells Fargo Financial, Inc., an $18 billon company providing consumer installment and home equity lending, automobile financing, consumer and private label credit cards, leasing to businesses and the medical community and receivables financing to consumers and businesses in 47 U. S. states, the 10 provinces of Canada, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands. Both companies are headquartered in Des Moines, IA and are subsidiaries of Wells Fargo & Company.

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Comdisco Completes Sale of Leasing Operations in France and Makes Additional “Partial Redemption” of $100 Million of Its 11% Subordinated Secured Notes

Comdisco Redeems $200 Million of Its 11% Subordinated Secured Notes

ROSEMONT, Ill.----Comdisco Holding Company, Inc. (OTC:CDCO) announced that it has received all necessary regulatory approvals and has completed the sale of its French leasing operations, Comdisco France S.A. and Promodata SNC, to Belgium-based computer services provider Econocom Group for approximately $70 million.

the company made a partial redemption of $200 million principal amount of its 11% Subordinated Secured Notes due 2005. The total outstanding principal amount of the notes prior to this redemption was $585 million. The $200 million of Subordinated Secured Notes were redeemed at a price equal to 100% of their principal amount plus accrued and unpaid interest from August 12, 2002 to December 23, 2002, the redemption date. Comdisco previously redeemed $65 million principal amount of the 11% Subordinated Secured Notes on November 14, 2002.

About Comdisco

The purpose of reorganized Comdisco is to sell, collect or otherwise reduce to money the remaining assets of the corporation in an orderly manner. Rosemont, IL-based Comdisco (www.comdisco.com) provided equipment leasing and technology services to help its customers maximize technology functionality and predictability, while freeing them from the complexity of managing their technology. Through its former Ventures division, Comdisco provided equipment leasing and other financing and services to venture capital backed companies.

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Nasdaq watches its ranks thin as tech sector's woes continue

ONE-THIRD OF ALL FIRMS DELISTED SINCE PEAK IN 1996

By Deborah Lohse

San Jose Mercury News

The premier stock market for hot technology companies has become the Incredible Shrinking Nasdaq.

The bursting of the technology-stock bubble, economic malaise and a dearth of initial public stock

offerings have helped reduce by one-third the number of companies that traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market at its peak in 1996. Nasdaq's roster of listed companies, at 3,684, is now at levels not seen since the early 1980s.

During the boom, ``investors opened the floodgates and created companies that qualified for Nasdaq listing, that now in retrospect shouldn't have been Nasdaq listed or even public companies,'' said Chad Keck, co-head of investment banking for Needham & Co. in Menlo Park.

And it could get worse. An estimated 11 percent of companies still on Nasdaq recently traded in the delisting danger zone of below $1 a share. Fifty-four of those companies are from Silicon Valley, including SonicBlue of Santa Clara and Oplink Communications of San Jose. Those 54 companies represent more than 14 percent of all public companies in Silicon Valley.

Some see the falloff as market Darwinism at work -- part of the bursting of the bubble that devoured $4 trillion in market value of Nasdaq companies, knocking the market's stock-performance index down nearly three-fourths since 2000.

``Some companies that are positioned to do well in a normal economy just can't get out in front of this giant snowball,'' said Deborah Stapleton, founder of Stapleton Communications, an investor and public relations firm in Palo Alto. ``Many are just fighting to stay alive in this environment.''

The losses aren't expected to threaten the viability of Nasdaq, but they have dimmed its reputation as the nation's unstoppable capital machine and pose a threat to its future revenue from listing and trading fees. Some speculate that the delistings contributed to the recent decision by Nasdaq's chairman, Hardwick Simmons, to step down when his term expires at the end of next year.

``I don't think Nasdaq deserved any credit for the boom, nor do I think they deserve any fault for the crash,'' said Benn Steil, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies stock-market issues.

The shriveling of Nasdaq has many causes. Some companies, like bankrupt Gadzoox Networks of San Jose and struggling San Francisco company Salon Media, couldn't meet listing standards, like getting their stock price back over $1 for at least 10 consecutive trading days, or maintaining $1 million or more of publicly held stock.

Hundreds of other companies were tossed in 1998 when the market beefed up its standards, while others disappeared through mergers (like Palo Alto's PayPal) or a move to the New York Stock Exchange (like Network Associates of Santa Clara). Onetime giant WorldCom and Beyond.com dropped off when bankruptcy prevented them from being current in the financial filings -- another listing requirement.

The New York Stock Exchange, which doesn't share Nasdaq's open-door policy for promising but profit- less new companies, has lost only 8.6 percent of the 3,025 companies that listed there at the peak in 1999.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Nasdaq has given companies that fall below $1 a share -- but are otherwise in compliance with listing standards -- up to 360 days to improve their stock prices, provided they have a viable turnaround plan.

To stay on Nasdaq's top-tier trading venue, the Nasdaq National Market, a company generally has to have a stock price of at least $1, public stock valued at a minimum of $5 million, and at least 750,000 shareholders, among other criteria. The National Market is home for Nasdaq's prize listed companies, such as Oracle, Intel, Microsoft and Cisco Systems.

Hundreds of smaller companies trade on the lower-tier Nasdaq SmallCap market, where companies must also trade for at least $1, but shareholder and public-stock value requirements are lower.

If a company is delisted, its shares typically begin trading either on the OTC Bulletin Board, run and loosely regulated by Nasdaq, or the Pink Sheets, a barely regulated private quotation service where companies aren't required to file regular financial reports.

For most companies, falling off Nasdaq is a blow, but it's often more of a symptom than a cause of their woes.

Take San Jose-based Notify Technology. The company went public in August 1997 and for a time enjoyed brisk demand for its stand-alone caller-ID and other phone hardware products, which phone companies offered as promotions. Then the promotions dried up, and phone makers started building their own such add-ons into their phones. Notify turned to wireless applications, just as investors were ditching wireless stocks in droves. Its stock dipped below $1 starting in late August 2001.

In March, the company hit a low of $140,000 in quarterly revenue.

``Our shareholders probably thought we were going out of business, '' said chairman and chief executive Paul DePond. The stock was delisted in September, after DePond had tried for months to get the share price over $1. ``No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't swim upstream,'' said DePond.

Ironically, the company's revenue picture has improved markedly since the delisting, topping $1.7 million for the most recent quarter, as it has partnered with carriers including AT&T for consumer voice- mail notification alerts.

``We're like a cat with nine lives,'' says DePond, who hopes his company can be relisted in the future. ``We may be on number six or seven.''

To avoid the ignominy of delisting, about 100 Nasdaq companies have done ``reverse stock splits,'' which gives each shareholder one higher-priced share for every four, five or even 20 shares they owned before the split. (San Francisco's Evolve Software on Tuesday announced a whopping 1-for-40 reverse split.)

Investors have historically looked poorly on such moves, figuring they are a last-ditch gimmick to get the price over $1 and stay listed but do nothing to improve a company's prospects.

But some investors say reverse splits may be getting a new respectability after large companies like Palm, AT&T and Lucent have undertaken them.

Mercury News Data Manager Jack Davis contributed to this report. Contact Deborah Lohse at dlohse@sjmercury.com or (408) 271-367

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ELA Prez Mike Fleming Speaks Out