Banks experienced a sharp increase in demand for new loans from business in March 2011 compared with  February - a fillip that may, in part, be a catch-up for business dislocated by flooding in January, but may also be an indicator of a rising trend.The Australian Bureau of Statistics put the rise, on a seasonally adjusted basis, in total commercial finance commitments at 13.3 per cent over the month.On a trend basis, the ABS estimated the rise in commercial finance commitments at 0.3 per cent, and it is this series shown in today's chart.On the trend data, demand for new business loans appears to have bottomed out in the second quarter of 2009, at around $29 billion a month, and remained at around that level until the third quarter of 2010.