With banks still facing challenges, alternative sources of credit are likely to play an increasingly important role in financing small businesses. The authors describe what ACCION USA has learned as its approach to microlending has evolved.

Most small business lending from banks originates with institutions that have a local branch, but “out-of-market” lending does not. Supporting the view that proximity is conducive to lending, I find that only about 10 percent of small business lending is from banks with no branch in the...

Providing efficiency and cost-savings over paper payments (cash and checks), commercial payment cards are among the fastest growing card segments in recent years. Today, they account for nearly one in every five dollars spent using general-purpose payment cards. And since business and government...

Small businesses have relied considerably on securitized markets for credit. The recent financial crisis led to a virtual cessation of securitization of some of the loans used by small businesses, such as commercial real estate mortgages, vehicle, and credit card loans. In addition, values of...

Information problems in small enterprise credit markets can result in a market equilibrium characterized by credit rationing. These information problems are potentially more severe during sharp economic downturns such as the recent Great Recession. Government interventions to alleviate credit...

This paper investigates whether small firms have experienced worse tightening of credit conditions during the Great Recession than large firms. To structure the empirical analysis, the paper first develops a simple model of bank loan pricing that derives both the interest rates on loans actually...

Remarks by Eric S. Rosengren, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, at the Connecticuct Business & Industry Association and MetroHartford Alliance Economic Summit & Outlook, Hartford, Connecticut, January 6, 2012.

Remarks at United States Military Academy at West Point, West Point, New York.

Over the last three years, the financial crisis and ensuing recession have led to tectonic shifts in the availability of credit, especially for small businesses. Data show that the number of loans to small businesses has dropped from 5.2 million loans in 2007 to 1.6 million in 2009. This trend...