by Alison Storm | 07/15/10

Small business owners may be able to get their hands on credit cards once again. After the credit crunch made plastic harder to get for small business owners, companies are now opening up more offers to this segment of the population. According to a report by Fox Business, a slight increase in available credit appeared in early 2010.

How do they track this? According to statistics, credit card companies are sending out more offers in the mail. In the first quarter of the year 2.8 million offers were sent out to small business owners. That was up from 2.3 million offers at the end of 2009. But industry experts aren't expecting a sudden rebound. "We're taking a cautiously more optimistic view," Andrew Davidson, senior vice president of Mintel Comperemedia, told Fox Business. "As we see more positive information on unemployment and defaults, we'll see (the availability of credit) spread."

Experts say they originally thought the Credit CARD act of 2009 may have something to do with the increase in available credit for small business owners. That's because new rules apply to consumer credit cards, not business accounts. "We thought as soon as CARD was announced, we'd get this whole flurry of small business offers being mailed out," Anuj Shahani, director of Synovate's competitive tracking service, told Fox Business. "It didn't hold true."

Now experts believe there's something else behind the increase in credit cards for small businesses. They say it's because the economy is improving. "We see a great opportunity," General Manager of Chase's Ink credit card Mike Nagle told Fox Business. "It's a large market. There are 27 million small businesses with up to $5 trillion a year in spending. The majority of that spending still happens on a check. There's a great opportunity to provide innovation." The majority of small businesses in the US use credit cards. "It's a reasonable assumption that people in business are more business-savvy," Chief Economist for the National Federation of Independent Business Bill Dunkelberg told Fox Business. "It's good to have some rules about disclosure. It makes it hard for people to be misled. On the other hand, the harder you make it, the less credit will be granted. There's a trade-off. Who's to say where that line is?"