At the end of the first half of calendar 2014, issuance in the Australian corporate bond market is running in-line with issuance in 2012, and ahead of the same time last year. 2012 ranks as the third best year in the market and 2013 as the fourth. As a result, the rolling 12-month issuance trend has turned upwards again and stands at A$90.5 billion. This is still some way off the April 2010 peak of $113 billion - but that peak came at a time when the major banks were issuing bonds in the domestic market hand over fist, because the international markets had become somewhat unreceptive. With stronger issuance volumes this year, net issuance turned positive in May, and this is reflected in the growth in total bonds outstanding. However, a noticeable trend this year has been towards small and frequent taps of existing lines by sovereign and supranational issuers. This has led to the average and median issue size falling to historically low levels.SSA issuers account for 38 per cent of issuance year to date. Kangaroo issuers overall account for 47 per cent of year to date issuance.Another trend led by SSA issuers is an increase in issuance of bonds with terms to maturity of ten years and longer. Small and frequent line taps work better with longer dated bonds.Perhaps the stronger issuance volume seen so far this year reflects a desire by issuers to get set ahead of an expected rise in interest rates. There are also signs that contracting credit spreads may be bottoming-out, at least in the short term.Issuance in international bond markets is following the domestic market trend, with year to date volume in line with the same time in 2012 and ahead of 2013. The banks are clearly driving this, with less reliance placed on funds sourced from the domestic market.The banks account for 92 per cent of year to date issuance in international markets.However, this also likely to reflect the record volume of international maturities this year, which again reflects a lot of issuance by the banks in 2009, with the aid of a Commonwealth government guarantee.