BizSugar.com › Raising Capital › Credit-card companies targeting small businesses

Small business is becoming big business for credit-card issuers.

With the consumer market saturated, card issuers and banks are expanding their credit-card offerings for small businesses in a bid to get in on what they see as an untapped market. Estimates vary, but American Express says only about 14% of the more than $2 trillion small businesses spend annually is done with plastic. In addition, businesses generally charge much more than consumers do.

That means more choices for small-business owners who are looking for additional capital. While the conventional mind-set is that credit-card debt is bad debt, it is often much easier and faster for start-ups to open a credit-card account than to secure a line of credit from a bank.