The difference in lending may be due in part to the fact that bigger banks tend to have a client base that itself is bigger, more credit worthy and more export oriented.
Recently, for example, I was in Nicaragua visiting a new client, a 700-member farmer cooperative that produces coffee for export and corn for domestic consumption The cooperative sells 300 tons of corn annually to its main buyer, the World Food Programme which is used to produce 6.7 million school lunches a year or one meal per day for 44, 000 children for an entire school year.