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As of recent years, women-owned businesses in the United States have experienced significant growth and have become a substantial force in the economy. It is estimated that there are more than fourteen million women owned business generating over two trillion dollars in annual revenue. The growth in women owned businesses has been fueled by a myriad of reasons, is occurring across all age groups and serves a diverse number of industries. Even with the growth in the number of women owned businesses and the economic impact these business have, women owned businesses are still underserved in the commercial credit markets. Female business owners tend to operate in industries that have a greater need for continuous working capital, thus women owned businesses tend to rely on revolving credit lines. Even with this demand for capital, women business owners are hesitant to apply for financing, and when they do, they are receiving a growing proportion of commercial credit, but the amount of credit granted still trails that of men. The recent growth in women owned businesses could be a driving factor in this disparity. New business have limited to no commercial credit history forcing lenders to evaluate the guarantor’s personal credit. On average, female business owners have a lower consumer credit score, which could be because they are carrying more personal debt to fund their businesses, ultimately decreasing their access to commercial credit. There are a number of factors that when combined, are limiting equal access to commercial credit for female business owners. The good news is that the number of successful women owned businesses continues to climb, and more grants and loans are available to women business owners. What I am watching While inflation in the U.S. is easing, it is still above the Fed’s 2% target. It is widely expected that the Federal Reserve will begin to lower interest rates later this year. It appears that the anticipated recession which led lenders to tighten credit will not occur. Therefore, lenders will likely begin to loosen credit criteria and potentially provide more opportunities for women-owned businesses to obtain the credit they need to operate and expand.

Now that most worldwide travel restrictions have been lifted, the industry is rebounding. It appears that travel businesses relied on more commercial credit to weather the storm of the pandemic and raised prices to help recove

The annual inflation rate continued to decline with May coming in at 4% which was the eleventh consecutive monthly decrease and the lowest level since March 2021. Lower inflation is driven primarily by lower energy costs which decreased 11.7% year over year. Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food, slowed to 5.3%. Despite inflation still much higher than the Fed’s 2% target, the Fed paused interest rate hikes after 10 consecutive rate increases in the last 15 months. The Fed indicated that additional hikes may come later this year. New businesses continue to open at a high rate. Despite that these newer, and specifically smaller, businesses are making up a larger and larger portion of commercial credit, they have additional funding needs. According to the Federal Reserve’s 2023 Small Business Credit Survey, almost 70% of businesses with zero employees use personal funding sources for their business while only 27% of them obtain funding from financial institutions or lenders. Since the non-employer businesses reported on 36% had a decline in revenue in 2022 (vs. 38% of employer businesses’ revenue declined in 2022), there is a huge opportunity for financial institutions to tap into this market and support small business growth. What I am watching Small businesses with very few or no employees flourished coming out of the pandemic. It will be interesting to see how many of these micro-businesses will survive the headwinds of inflation, higher interest rates and less access to credit. With an economic slowdown on the horizon, the Fed actions in the coming months will be critical to the outcome. It is yet to be determined if the U.S. economy will achieve the hoped-for soft landing rather than a recession. Download your copy of Experian's Commercial Pulse Report today. Better yet, subscribe so you'll always know when the latest Pulse Report comes out. Subscribe Today

Derrek McCrank from Moody's Analytics answers a few questions about the trends we are seeing in the latest Experian/Moody's Analytics Main Street Report.

According to the Kauffman Foundation Index of Startup Activity, only 0.31 percent of U.S. adults ever starts a business. That's 310 people out of every 100,000. That's a shocking statistic for a country of 325 million people. In fact, new business starts have been in a slow, steady decline since the late 70's.

In just one week, Augmented Reality (AR) proved itself to be the Next Big Thing in popular entertainment. Within days of Niantic Labs release of Pokémon Go, in which players "hunt" and "capture" fantastical creatures using their smartphone cameras, tens of millions of Americans have become hooked on the game. According to media reports, the app has already been installed on twice as many phones as Tinder™, is used twice as much as Snapchat, and is surpassing the all-powerful Twitter in its number of daily active users. The skyrocketing value of parent company Nintendo's stock price has provided further testament to the game's perceived long-term stamina.