March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged banks to “go the extra mile” and keep credit flowing to U.S. businesses, saying that refusing to make loans will worsen the faltering economy.

“When banks individually pull back out of a sense of prudence and caution, the collective impact of those actions will make the economy weaker and make each individual bank worse off,” Geithner said in prepared remarks at the White House in Washington.

The Treasury chief and President Barack Obama are announcing a series of programs today to spur lending to small businesses. The administration has come under fire from lawmakers for bailing out Wall Street firms and their executives while seeming to ignore the concerns of average Americans.

As part of today’s initiative, the Treasury will require the 21 largest banks that get funds from the $700 billion financial rescue to report every month details about their lending to small businesses.

Geithner said he will work with regulators to request that all of the nation’s banks file quarterly reports on small- business lending rather than once a year, Geithner said.

In his speech, Geithner said he wanted to “deliver a clear message” to U.S. lenders.

“Many banks in this country took too much risk, but the risk now to the economy as a whole is that you take too little risk,” Geithner said. “And given the role many banks played in causing this crisis, you bear a special responsibility for helping America get out of it.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Schmidt in Washington at rschmidt5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 16, 2009 12:08 EDT