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BY VICTORIA CRAIG

You're watching multi-source video news analysis from Newsy. 

U.S. banks tried to keep lending low in the last part of 2011, but a Federal Reserve survey says loan requests are on the rise. Bloomberg explains why banks are hanging onto their money.

“Domestic American banks say commercial and industrial, and commercial real estate loan demand is up. Small business demand increased by the most in any quarter since 2005 But lending standards were little changed.”  

And Bloomberg notes -- standards for lending didn’t change much. So, what’s the reason behind the tightened standards and increased desire to borrow money? 24/7 Wall Street explains. 

"The rise in funding was due to inventory restocking, covering accounts receivable, and mergers and acquisitions. For banks where lending fell, the chief reason was less need for capital investment." 

A senior economics reporter for CNBC says the results of the Fed’s latest survey could be a sign of good things to come.

“A bunch of good stuff there that I think was something that we’ve been waiting to see in this recovery here, Bill, but haven’t seen too much which is loan demand and of course, it was a reversal of the prior quarter but we’ll see if this continues.”

Dow Jones notes -- Europe’s financial troubles could be helping U.S. banks see less competition from their European counterparts. But the Wall Street Journal takes that analysis one step further, highlighting the possible downside to less investment.

“Banks in the U.S. started to tighten credit in the second half of 2011 as Europe's debt crisis worsened, following almost two years of easier standards on business loans. The tighter credit conditions could hurt the fragile U.S. recovery, which has recently shown signs of improvement.”

While banks aren’t too keen on easing their lending standards for commercial and industrial loans, CNBC reports some banks are easing standards on credit cards and other consumer loans.