Some bankers said they are so encouraged by signs that theeconomy is starting to recover that they plan to increase theirsmall business lending efforts this year.

According to a survey of 409 bankers conducted by research firmOmegaPerformance, 77% of respondents said they were likely toincrease their small business lending activity. For those banks that don't offer small business products and services,78% said they were planning to actively pursue offering them.

Bankers said small business activity (78.3%) is the top areathat they plan to actively pursue this year, followed by medium andlarge business (66%), consumer (59%), individual housing (42%),credit cards (32.5%), auto loans (31.6%), multi-family housing(23.1%), construction (14.2%) and other activities (8.0%).

Seventy-nine percent of respondents said the economy willimprove over the course of 2012. Still, 57.1% said they don'tplan to make any changes to their credit standards for bothcommercial and consumer loans this year despite the same percentagesaying they expect to do more commercial lending.