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Scott Metzger wanted to start a restaurant-microbrewery in San Antonio. His credit was good. His business plan was sound. He should have had an easy time getting financing.

He didn't. After spending a year developing relationships with three large banks, he was abruptly denied last December.

The banks told Metzger that they were tightening loan standards in an attempt to lower risk.

On the hook for thousands of dollars, he turned to his credit union, a not-for-profit lending cooperative. His loans were approved within two weeks, and his brewery is set to open in October.

These days, small-business owners looking for a loan are turning to non-traditional sources, such as credit unions or online lending Web sites that cut out the traditional bank middleman and to factoring companies, which buy companies' future revenues.

But some of these alternative financers are more expensive than a traditional bank loan, or are brand-new and largely untested.

At least four Web social lenders have joined the marketplace in the past year: Zopa Inc., GlobeFunder Ventures Inc., Virgin Money USA and Lending Club.

"There's been an enormous market of underserved customers that these new products reach," said Mitch Jacobs, CEO of On Deck Capital Inc., an online lender.

While online lenders can offer better terms than credit cards, their products are limited. Most of the major sites' loans top out at $25,000. GlobeFunder says it will probably offer a new maximum loan amount of $100,000 in less than two months. The Small Business Administration's main lending program can guarantee loans of up to $2 million.

Like Metzger, others seeking heftier financing turn to credit unions, lending cooperatives that are not traditionally associated with business lending. Most of the credit unions that make business loans today began to do so during the past 15 years as they were granted community charters, allowing them to serve a geographic area rather than a single company's employees or a professional association.

Credit unions made almost $12 billion worth of new business loans last year. The Credit Union National Association has said credit-union business loans totaled $28 billion in 2007, with the average size of business loans granted being $181,000.

Meanwhile, commercial banks have increasingly referred loan-seeking businesses to asset-based lenders and factoring companies. A traditional source of financing for the apparel and furniture sectors, factors buy up a company's incoming revenues for a fee, giving them that capital upfront. Asset-based lenders float loans against the incoming sales receipts.

Factors offer a cushion of protection to companies whose customers have a lot of debt and could be unable to repay them. Since the factor buys up a business's future sales, potential defaults by that company's customers are absorbed by the factor.