The local arm of GE Capital is having to source up to 90 per cent of its funding from its US parent, compared to mid-2008, when it was securing up to half of its funding needs in the local market as Australia's biggest bond issuer, Steve Sargent, CEO of GE in Australia and New Zealand said."Up until the middle of last year we were the largest commercial paper issuer in the country, we were the largest bond issuer in Australia, and about half of our funding came from Australian sources, so local issuances, so bonds and commercial paper," Sargent said."When the federal government put the deposit guarantee in place, all of the people who previously invested in our commercial paper, our investors locally put all their spare cash into bank deposits, which were obviously government guaranteed. So there was a huge flood of cash moving away from our traditional investor markets into the banks. "Now, as a commercial paper program, we have almost nothing outstanding at the moment locally. So, today we would have, I'm going to say 80 per cent, 90 per cent of our funding comes through the US."Sargent said that he hasn't felt any easing in the Australian marketplace."I think Australia was potentially more impacted than most, because as far as debt markets go, it's always been a fairly illiquid market, even from syndicating bank debt to corporate debt all the way through."It's always been a fairly illiquid market compared with highly liquid markets in the Euro zone and in the US and to a lesser extent up in Asia. The debt markets are still closed here...but we're getting plenty of liquidity out of the US right now, so that's working for us."Sargent also added that the downgrade of parent GE's credit rating in the US is unlikely to affect the local operations and says he is expecting an improvement in markets towards the end of this year.Business Spectator