China Commercial Credit, Inc. (Nasdaq: CCCR) is a leading microcredit company providing loans and loan guarantees in Jiangsu Province, China, and is the first China-based microcredit company to become public in the U.S. The company was founded in 2008 as a result of banking reform authorizing the proliferation of credit companies designed to issue competitive-interest loans to small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), farmers and individuals — groups which, although accounting for eight of ten jobs in China and 60 percent of the nation's GDP, had historically been excluded from borrowing funds from China's State-owned and commercial banks.

Since 2008, spurred by ongoing government legislation, China's microcredit industry has seen rapid expansion. According to data supplied by Peoples Bank of China (PBOC), in June 2013 the nation had 7,086 microcredit companies with outstanding loans of $115 billion compared to only 1,940 microcredit companies with outstanding loans of $21 billion three years earlier. Jiangsu Province has seen the fastest growth of any province in China during this period, with the number of microcredit firms rising 4.3 times to 529 and outstanding loans growing six times to $18 billion. Wujiang City, CCC's base, has prospered as well, becoming one of China's most economically successful cities and home to an increasing number of the world's leading exporters of electronic equipment, chemicals and textiles — many of which have utilized microfinance loans.

Growth of the China microcredit industry is likely to continue due in part to three government policies. The first are the June 2013 credit tightening measures on the nation's State-owned banks, which are expected to drive additional loan applicants into the microcredit sector. Second is the increased government pressure on China's private, high-interest underground lenders, many of whom have charged SMEs 50 percent interest or more. The third are government moves to block banks' off-balance sheet "back-door" loans to small-to-medium enterprises, thereby increasing SME reliance on microcredit companies.

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