(Thumbnail image: White House)

President Obama is uring bank leaders to start lending more credit to Americans in order to re-start the economy.  But critics are saying time and again the banks have ignored his message.  But after Monday's meeting, the leaders of the nation's top banks said they would start lending more.  So how much more pull does Mr. Obama actually have with the finance industry?  

We're looking at perspectives on Mr. Obama's influence with banks and whether they will keep true to their promise from CNN, FOX News, The New York Times, ABC News, and The Huffington Post.

CNN's Christine Roman says bankers are threatened but not by the president's bully pulpit speeches.

"You're going to hear a lot of people saying 'Lend, lend lend,' but bankers are saying 'Wait, we have to be careful about lending.' I think the bankers, and I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I think the bankers are more chastened by what happened a year ago than they are chastened by the White House."

On FOX News, Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, says President Obama should know better than to encourage banks to make risky loans.

"He ought to understand what's going on with the banks. It's not just big banks, it's banks everywhere across the country.  It's community banks and so on that just aren't lending, for the same reason: they got burned before. Remember what got us in trouble in the first place: It was partly the banks giving all these imprudent loans to people who couldn't pay back, but they were encouraged by the federal government that would buy up a lot of these loans."

The DealBook blog from The New York Times writes banks are not listening to Washington like they did this time last year. Now they have more on the line with unfavorable regulations on the horizon.

"If the banks came hat in hand to Washington a year ago to assure their survival, they returned on Monday in a much stronger position to deal with the government. As they scurry to repay the government and escape its influence over their operations, they have been fighting elements of legislation to regulate their industry more tightly."

But a Harvard economics professor and former Federal Reserve economist tells ABC News the threat of those new regulations should spur the banks to work with the president.

"Fundamentally, they're in the midst of rewriting banking regulations that are going to affect how these guys operate for the next two decades or more. Certainly the president has a lot of sway over them."

Finally, Ryan McCarthy of The Huffington Post writes that whether or not Obama influenced the move, bank CEOs can't be trusted when they say they will change how they do things.

"It's still unclear that this public admission by bank CEOs that they have lobbied against necessary reform is anything more than a publicity stunt. But, ostensibly at least, it's a stunning reversal by industry execs who have led a lavishly-funded lobbying effort to shut down reform."

So what do you think? Will President Obama's tough talk on lending work with banking CEO's?

Writer: Justin Wolfgang

Producer: Nathan Giannini