Credit Crunch Benefits Microlending in U.S.

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- The small-business credit clampdown, caused by poor risk control among the largest U.S. banks, has sparked an awareness of the decades-old practice of microlending.

Though microlending flourishes in developing countries, those types of loans have been used in the U.S. since the founding of New York-based Accion USA.

"We are only about 15 years younger than the strategy abroad," says Laura Kozien, director of communications for Accion. "We are sort of the less famous little sister of international microfinance."

Accion has grown to be the largest microlender in the country, with more than $230 million borrowed since its creation.

Other microlenders in the U.S. include San Jose, Calf.-based Opportunity Fund, Community First Fund in Lancaster, Penn., and the Wisconsin Women's Business Initiative Corp. Also entering the U.S. microfinance arena is Grameen Bank, founded by Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh in 1970. Earlier this year, Grameen set up shop in New York, the first of what it hopes will be hundreds of American outposts.

Accion was established in 1991 in Brooklyn, N.Y., and has since provided more than 11,000 loans from its New York, Atlanta, Miami and Boston offices as well as through an online lending platform. When Citigroup(C Quote), Bank of America(BAC Quote) or community banks fail to help small businesses seeking credit lines, Accion steps in. Loans ranging from $500 to $50,000 (with an average of $6,000) are targeted to low- and moderate-income individuals.

"A very modest estimate of the entrepreneurs with access to capital in the United States is 10 million," Kozien says. "We only reach 18,000."