Venezuela’s Private Lenders Blossom in Land of $1 Credit Card Limits

The amounts are so small that in most places they’d go on a credit card -- a few hundred dollars to buy an appliance, or a few thousand to stock a corner store’s shelves. Except, in Venezuela card limits can be as low as $1, and banks severely curtailed lending years ago.

So a cottage industry of at least half a dozen shadow lenders has sprung up to make short-term loans at monthly interest rates of as high as 5%. Catering to Venezuela’s middle and lower classes, as well as mom-and-pop enterprises, the startups are filling a void and helping fuel the country’s tentative economic rebound.