The ugly acronym covers a swarm of different institutions including community credit unions, loan funds and microfinance funds whose goal is to provide credit and capital to poor people who lack access to conventional financial services, such as banks.

ECONOMIST: Community development finance

Though the numbers are impossible to nail down, managers describe the dollars involved as in the billions from a combination of loan-only and multi-strategy credit funds.

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The previously undisclosed debt meant the Credit Suisse funds no longer had an exclusive claim on their loan collateral.

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