The face of small business is evolving. Physicality is no longer a factor; open a laptop or answer the phone from your dining room table and you are working. No matter the size or location today's entrepreneurs pay bills, support families, out source and hire. For many a loan well under $10,000 mark could take them to the next level of their growth and income; which in turn means an increase in their overall fiscal contributions.

In spite of this even established small businesses find that banks have no interest in helping them; they don't meet the business loan criteria. I was therefore pleased to read With Squeeze on Credit, Microlending Blossoms by Kristina Shevory. In third world countries microlending was starting in an effort to alleviate poverty. This same foundation can work well in North America but it can also provide for those businesses with good credit.

In Shevory's article William Dunkelberg, chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business and chairman of Liberty Bell Bank said, "We're not in the business of funding great ideas." No banks cannot hand out funds indiscriminately on that premise alone but a single great idea has given the world some phenomenal businesses.

Microlending will never have a direct affect on the world wide recession or it's recovery. What it can do though is help small business take its rightful place in the global economic picture.

Business Bytes from Jill Crossland