The Australian branch of Rabobank became the first non-Australian owned bank to issue offshore last week with a modest $100 million, three year, fixed rate issue in the Euromarket. The issue was not government guaranteed, with Rabo's own triple A ratings being sufficient to get the deal done.Issuance offshore was modest last week with the Commonwealth Bank being the only other issuer. The bank added $50 million to the $125 million, January 2012, euro medium term notes line opened two weeks earlier and placed ¥4 billion of five year euro FRNs at a fine spread of Libor plus 55 basis points.There was talk of issuance in the Samurai market, with Westpac said to be looking to price three- and five-year bond issues on Friday or today. Pricing was being suggested at 40-45 bps and 65-75 bps over libor/swap. ANZ was also said to be planning a Samurai issue. Total offshore issuance for the month came in at the equivalent of $21.6 billion, ahead of the January 2008 record of $19.3 billion, although this does need to be viewed in the context of a considerably weaker Australian dollar now, than what it was a year ago. However, in keeping with what we saw a year ago, issuance into the US s144A market and issuance denominated in US dollars, accounted for the majority of issuance at $15.8 billion and $17.7 billion, respectively. Issuance into the Euromarket accounted for the balance, denominated across other dollar bloc currencies, Swiss francs, British pounds and Japanese yen.But unlike a year ago, three-year maturities accounted for $15.2 billion of the bonds issued and a further $5.4 billion of bonds issued had five-year maturities. In January 2008, 77 per cent of the bonds issued were for terms to maturity of a little more than one year, with much of that being in the form of 13-month extendible notes.Finally, there was some evidence of credit spread contraction in the offshore bond issues undertaken during the month but it was not as clear cut as in the domestic market. There was little disclosed in the second half of the month and what was disclosed was generally for smaller deals.