Lending Drops at Big U.S. Banks

Top Beneficiaries of Federal Cash Saw Outstanding Loans Decline 1.4% Last Quarter

Lending at many of the nation's largest banks fell in recent months, even after they received $148 billion in taxpayer capital that was intended to help the economy by making loans more readily available. bailout

Ten of the 13 big beneficiaries of the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, saw their outstanding loan balances decline by a total of about $46 billion, or 1.4%, between the third and fourth quarters of 2008, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of banks that recently announced their quarterly results.

Those 13 banks have collected the lion's share of the roughly $200 ....