Lenders Should Be Clamoring to Lend to Women Entrepreneurs. Why Aren’t They? May 05, 2021 Who are the lowest risks for banks? Women entrepreneurs, new research reveals. If only we were getting credit for it. (And yes, I mean that in both senses of the word.) Knowing that women receive less than 5 percent of small business loans, CNote partnered with ICA Fund Good Jobs, an Oakland, California–based community development financial institution that invests in high-potential businesses, to find out if women are riskier borrowers. ICA analyzed 10 years of loan repayment data from six CDFIs (community development financial institutions) participating in the Wisdom Fund, evaluating risk based on three factors: the probability of default, the likelihood of delinquency, and expected losses. It then applied a statistical model to predict how likely different groups of borrowers are to default on their loans.