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has demonstrated responsible credit behavior and repaid enough to build up equity in the vehicle equal to the resale value of the vehicle at the wholesale level, some lenders are willing to switch the borrower at that point to more conventional financing. In a further refinement of the credit scoring technique, some lenders have a tiered pricing arrangement, in which different scores are assigned for different term lengths of loans. Inevitably, a certain proportion of subprime borrowers may have trouble meeting their payments. This is no cause for panic: experience shows that most are anxious to be responsible。 knowledgeable lenders train their employees to look for the cause of delinquency and try for some remedy, rather than immediately resort to repossessionif two conditions are met: (a) The scoring techniques have screened out the obvious deadbeats who have no intention of repaying。 (b) The lender is willing to work with the borrower。 then the chances are that the credit will remain in good standing. Historically the nonprime market has been the favored preserve of finance panies, especially local or regional ones, although some national ones are also active. Banks have occasionally dipped a toe in these waters, and those with separate consumer finance affiliates have sometimes been players. A news story last year highlighted the fact that the number of banks in one large city that offer subprime auto lending went from one to four. A recent business magazine article highlighted the story of a large Texas bank which went insolvent, then was reorganized, and took on a successful new life as a finance pany specializing in subprime lending. As more and more lenders assess the demographics and analyze the risk characteristics, additional players are ing into the subprime market. The very biggest provider of motor vehicle finance, Ford Motor Credit Co., recently created a new subsidiary, Fairlane Credit, specifically designed to address the subprime market. That seems to say that subprime lending is now much closer to the mainstream. LEASING: BIG BUSINESS, BIG QUESTIONS In the fall of 1996, the Federal Reserve Board issued an updated Regulation M, concerning automotive lease finance, to bee effective in October 1997. The move set the seal on the fact that leasing of cars and trucks has advanced rapidly from a very small sideline to a solid position near center stage in the world of automotive finance. In 1990, leasing accounted for some % of newvehicle financial transactions at the retail level. The figure reached % in 1995, an estimated 35 % last year, and clearly gathered very strong momentum for further advances. In some quarters, there are even predictions that leasing could rise to as much as 60% or 70% of the market. While that may be exaggerated, it seems safe to say that a large segment of the public is altering its basic view of what having a car or truck represents. Rather than thinking of a personal vehicle as an asset to be financed and then owned more or less like a home, the view is gaining that a vehicle is a transportation service: an asset to be held for a time, then released. It seems also to say that, with