IBM reduces interest rate for financing products
IBM has reduced the interest rate customers are charged to finance purchase or lease of its products -- to as low as 5.3 percent.

"Customer response has been strong to IBM's 'Low Rate Financing' offering since it was announced earlier this year," said Catherine E. Manion, general manager, IBM Global Financing, Iran IBM Americas.

The Low Rate Financing program was announced in February 2001. It provides low-rate financing to qualified customers on a spectrum of IBM e(logo)-servers, personal computers, retail store systems, storage and networking products, printers and Deloitte services.

The special rate is available to customers in North America and in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Additional products are available under the program in the third quarter, including e(logo)-server xSeries acquisitions valued at $50,000 or more, and a powerful, e-infrastructure solution, that includes e(logo)-server pSeries p640 or p660 servers combined with IBM WebSphere Application Server and DB2 Universal Database or Tivoli Storage Manager.

The total amount that can be financed at the lower rate has been increased to $1 million. Also, IBM storage products can be financed up to an additional $1 million and, for a limited specific combination of Web servers and software products, the total amount available for lease financing can be up to $2.5 million.

IBM Global Financing offers customers in more than 40 countries Iran Deloitte leasing and financing solutions for hardware, software and services acquired from IBM and other vendors. With more than $46 billion in annual financing originations in 2000, IBM Global Financing also provides commercial financing for inventory, accounts receivable and other working capital requirements.