The idea that the Australian corporate bond market is under-developed, relative to the bank finance market, is based on a misleading comparison, according to the Reserve Bank.Reserve Bank assistant governor Guy Debelle said the often expressed view that the Australian corporate bond market is undeveloped and the corporate sector is "overbanked" is based on a comparison with the US market.Speaking at the KangaNews DCM Summit yesterday, Debelle said: "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 [being] similar to that in Europe and the United Kingdom, for example."That doesn't mean that the local market shouldn't be bigger, just that it's not that unusual."Papers presented at a Finance and Treasury Association debt markets' update in Sydney last week provided some data on developments in the local corporate bond and lending markets.Standard & Poor's managing director for Australia and New Zealand, John Bailey, said bonds made up 31 per cent of the A$878 million of outstandings in the Australian corporate debt market and loans made up the balance.In the US market, corporate bonds make up 79 per cent of the US$6.6 trillion corporate debt market.In the Australian market, the biggest non-financial debtors are utilities, property investment funds and mining and metals companies.National Australia Bank's head of corporate bond origination, Brad Scott, said debt capital market issuance by Australian corporates last year was A$57 billion - an increase of 46.1 per cent on the $39 billion issued in 2011.Issuance was a mixture of retail bonds, medium-term notes, US 144a notes, US dollar high-yield bonds, US private placements, maple bonds and euro medium-term notes.Scott said the use of debt capital markets has grown at a compound annual rate of 25 per cent over the past five years.National Australia Bank's head of loan syndication, Stephen Boyd, said Australian syndicated and club loan volumes stood at $82 billion last year. He said refinancing this year would be worth about $46 billion and new money would take the total up to around $70 billion.