President Obama recently held a meeting with some of the nation’s largest commercial banking groups, stressing the importance of taking “extraordinary” steps to restore the U.S. economy after obtaining taxpayer bailout dollars. Financial service institutions were monetarily assisted by taxpayers to avoid bankruptcy, which was “largely of their own making,” he said; rendering them indebted to homeowners and small businesses alike. “America’s banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers… Now that they’re back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild the economy,” Obama said in comments after the White House session.

Among the crowd were CEOs of U.S. Bancorp, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., who afterwards announced that they would substantially expand their lending. “Every bank in that room talked about adding many, many small business originators, and setting very aggressive goals for small business lending next year,” said Richard Davis, the chief executive officer of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp. Wells Fargo also announced plans to increase lending in 2010 as much as 25 percent - to more than $16 billion - for businesses with $20 million or less in annual revenue, according to Sarah E. Toffoli, VP and communications manager. However while White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that all the banks determined to take “second looks” at loans that had been previously refused, some executives warned that they still need to proceed sensibly. “Not everyone is credit worthy in today’s world,” said Robert Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon, on CNBC after the meeting. The U.S. economy is recuperating, he said, “but it’s really fragile.”