In stirring up trouble about funding costs, some have claimed that the wholesale funding markets were closed to Aussie bank. Au contraire. From the best banking publication in Australia, Banking Day (you should subscribe if you don't--it is dirt cheap):
"National Australia Bank has this week broken an eight-week lull in the sale of unsecured term debt by banks in the domestic market, with the sale of A$800 million of three-year floating rate notes. NAB yesterday priced the bonds, which mature in December 2014, at 130 basis points over the swap rate. This is around 28 basis points wider than the price quoted on Monday by Yieldbroker for the bank's corresponding floating-rate debt maturing on September 14, and around the same yield as the bank's five-year floating rate debt. The last sale of term debt in the domestic debt market was in the third week of October, when ANZ sold $1 billion in four-year floating rate notes at 135 basis points over swap. They are still quoted at this spread on Yieldbroker. Otherwise, major banks have largely restricted their sale of term debt to the structured market; with two banks (ANZ and Westpac) selling covered bond issues on terms that at the time deterred planned follow-up sales by NAB and Commonwealth Bank. NABa, however, has this week also privately placed the equivalent of A$200 million in covered bonds in a 10-year deal. The newspaper did not reporting pricing."
