AMERICA'S COMMUNITY BANKERS, NASDAQ
UNVEIL COMMUNITY BANK INDEX

New York and Washington, D.C.—The NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ^®), the world's largest electronic stock market, and America's Community Bankers (ACB), the national trade association for community banks, today announced the creation of the nation's most broadly diversified stock index for community banks.

The index, which will be known as America's Community Bankers NASDAQ Index, is scheduled to launch on December 8, 2003. America's Community Bankers will mark the launch of the new index at The NASDAQ Stock Market Open on December 8, with ACB Chairman William W. Zuppe, who is also President and Chief Operating Officer of Sterling Financial Corp., Spokane, Wash., and NASDAQ senior officials.

In making the announcement at ACB's Annual Convention in Las Vegas, Mr. Zuppe, said, "ACB and NASDAQ developed this index as a yardstick for the capital market to use in measuring the performance of community bank stocks. Community banks fuel the economy, funding new business formation, expanding small business development, participating in local community economic development, and serving the unique needs of their customers and their communities."

"We expect the index to bring more visibility to community bank stocks, especially small-cap stocks that are often not covered by stock analysts and market makers. We believe that the increased institutional investor interest created by the index should result in greater liquidity and fairer valuations," he added. Mr. Zuppe is also Chairman and CEO of Sterling Savings Bank.

"Over the years, NASDAQ has developed indexes in key sectors to provide investors with increased information and useful benchmarks to track performance, such as the NASDAQ Financial-100 index, NASDAQ Bank Index, NASDAQ Biotechnology Index, NASDAQ Insurance Index, NASDAQ Computer Index, NASDAQ Transportation Index, and the NASDAQ Telecommunications Index, just to mention a few," said Mr. Bob Greifeld, President and CEO of The NASDAQ Stock Market. "By focusing solely on community banks' performance, NASDAQ and ACB have created a useful index for proxy statements of community banks, and a measurement of community bank performance, " added Mr. Greifeld.

The America's Community Bankers NASDAQ index is expected to include more than 500 NASDAQ-listed banks and thrifts or their holding companies selected by ACB, representing over $150 billion in market capitalization. Based on FDIC data, the list will not include any of the 50 largest banks based on asset size, banks classified as having an "international specialization" and banks classified as having a "credit card specialization." The index will be adjusted for splits and spin-offs. It will reflect total return as of ex-dividend date.

Objective eligibility criteria for the index will be set by ACB. The index will be calculated once a day using the NASDAQ Official Closing Price. Unlike other NASDAQ indexes, the America's Community Bankers NASDAQ Index will be a total return index, which means that companies' dividends will be reinvested and included in the index value. Final determination of the eligibility criteria and components of the index will be made by ACB in December.

America's Community Bankers represents the nation's community banks. ACB members, whose aggregate assets total more than $1 trillion, pursue progressive, entrepreneurial and service-oriented strategies in providing financial services to benefit their customers and communities.

NASDAQ is the world's largest electronic stock market. With approximately 3,400 companies, NASDAQ lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. It is home to category-defining companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, media and biotechnology industries. For more information about NASDAQ, visit the NASDAQ Web site at www.NASDAQ.com or the NASDAQ Newsroom^SM. at www.nasdaq.com/newsroom.