The banks trying to sell down the First Data leveraged buyout debt appear to have caught a break with HSBC deciding to hold on for the ride. Sources tell Reuters Loan Pricing Corp. that HSBC will not sell its underwriting exposure on the deal, which is around 20 percent of the overall loan.

That lessens the amount of bank debt they now have to distribute to loan investors.

That’s just one piece of good news for the closely-watched deal.

The other is that strong demand has led First Data to more than double its current term loan sale to $13 billion from $5 billion, sources tell Reuters LPC.

The remaining underwriters are Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch.

The move by HSBC highlights the tug of war going on right now between the banks and debt investors. If the banks think they can get around 95 cents to 96 cents on the dollar, then they’ll sell down to investors and take a minor hit. But banks aren’t willing (not yet at least) to sell the debt in the low 90s. (”We don’t need to sell this at fire sale prices yet,” says one banker).

Does HSBC think the demand is low enough to where the market won’t scoop this up in the mid-90s? Maybe. It’s a complicated deal. But certainly the picture has brightened for the First Data loan sale, a bellwether of the $350 billion debt pig trying to squeeze through the proverbial python.