index. asp >. bis central bankers ’ speeches conditions have also picked up in the kangaroo market. ten kangaroo issuers debuted in the market in 2012. the diversity of new issuers was also a notable feature, and included asian names and non - financial corporates. another positive development has been the reemergence of some non - ssa issuers not seen since the start of the global financial crisis, while more recently a number of european issuers have returned to the market after being absent for much of 2012. kangaroo issuance has been supported by the broad - based reduction in spreads, the attractive basis, and foreign investors looking beyond aaa instruments for australian dollar exposure. these foreign investors have been notably active and asian investor participation in particular continues to grow. some recent rba initiatives in australian debt markets i will now briefly discuss two recent rba initiatives concerning the local debt market. firstly, the reserve bank is in the process of signing two - way credit support annexes with all of its swap counterparties. a number of these agreements are already operational, including those with the bank ’ s largest counterparties, and we expect agreements to be in place with all counterparties in the coming weeks. this move is in line with best practices in risk management. as more market participants collateralise their exposures in both directions, this should also free collateral for the system ( in aggregate ), and enhance liquidity and the resilience of the australian derivatives markets. secondly, late last year, the reserve bank announced new data reporting requirements for repo - eligible rmbs. the information required by the bank includes loan - level and other transaction specific data that issuers must also make publicly available. these initiatives are designed to help the bank assess the quality of rmbs provided as collateral and will also improve the transparency of the market as a whole. for investors, the data will be easier to access and because the reporting templates are standardised, investors can better compare the underlying credit characteristics of different deals, and also use the data in their own analytics. the consultation period for the proposed reporting templates closed at the end of last year. the bank is currently reviewing the consultation findings and will finalise the reporting templates over the next month or so. a long - run perspective on australian corporate bond issuance i will now turn to the corporate bond market. non - financial corporate issuance has also been robust, and was particularly strong towards the end of last year, led by some large

began to shift towards a larger share of private issuance, in part to fund mining investment, and as corporations looked to source capital from outside the heavily regulated banking system ( graph 8 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches graph 8 graph 9 bis central bankers ’ speeches bond issuance trends changed significantly from the early 1980s onwards as the australian economy and financial system underwent large structural changes. financial deregulation and liberalisation in the late 1970s and early 1980s saw banks rely less on deposits and instead turn to the capital markets to fund balance sheet growth. as we know, bank bond issuance has since grown rapidly, and banks have become the largest issuers of australian bonds ( graph 9 ). some other notable trends since the early 1980s have included the large number of privatisations, which has resulted in the share of quasi - government bonds falling to close to zero, and the growth of the asset - backed market. on the investor side, compulsory super and increased offshore issuance caused a shift away from direct holdings by households towards indirect holdings through superannuation funds and non - resident investors. another important development was the abolition of capital controls and the floating of the australian dollar. prior to the 1980s, there were a range of constraints on capital flows that were intended to prevent or discourage firms from undertaking foreign borrowing. since these controls were relaxed, banks and other corporations have obtained a significant proportion of funding from offshore bond markets. since 1986, the stock of bonds issued offshore by australian residents has exceeded the size of the onshore market ( graph 10 ). graph 10 the liberalisation of the capital account also contributed to the development of the “ kangaroo ” bond market. kangaroo issuance was also encouraged by, and contributed to, the development of an active cross - currency interest rate swap market in australia. i will finish with a few thoughts on the current state of the domestic corporate bond market. there is a fair amount of discussion about the size, liquidity and functionality of the local market. let me raise three issues worth considering : • is the local corporate sector too banked? the us is often held up as the comparator here, but in some respects the us is the exception, with the size of the australian corporate bond market similar to that in europe and the uk for example. that doesn ’ t mean the local market shouldn ’ t be bigger, just that it ’ s not that unusual. • in many of the recent discussions about the state of the local market, i have been in