The $44 billion global microfinance industry got a boost recently as private equity investor BlueOrchard attracted $195 million to a new fund aimed at helping microfinance lenders modernize their organizations, improve governance and risk management, and develop into fully-fledged financial institutions.

The knock-on effect is that as the industry as a whole becomes more standardized, with stronger, regulated and rated institutions, this should attract more investment and help turn microfinance into a recognized asset class, which in turn is good news for small businesses both in the US and globally that benefit from microfinance lending.

There's a current controversy about just how effective microfinance is in developing nations.  I'm referring to organizations that provide tiny loans to poor people, usually women, in India, Latin America, and Africa, to jumpstart a tiny business. 

 But what's lost in this discussion is how useful microfinance has been in the good old USA during the current downturn.