Bankers reported yesterday that they were not hearing from clients needing help with liquidity support in the US commercial paper market, as their North American and Canadian counterparts had been over the past week.But they said it was early days and that many local commercial paper issuers had yet to test the market by rolling over their issues.Those issuers will find the cost of issuance has gone up a lot in the past week. Estimates of the increase in spreads vary, an indication that lenders and investors are having trouble finding price levels. This also reflects muted trading in a climate of uncertainty. Some banks estimate spreads on A1+ rated commercial paper at as low as 10 or 15 points over the swap rate (still five times more than normal). Other banks reported prices at 18 basis points over and as high as 25 basis points over on A1 rated paper.The US$2 trillion US CP market is heavily used by highly rated issuers for short term funding needs (typically 30 to 60 days).The global credit market crisis hit the CP market last week when three US issuers took advantage of the option to extend their borrowings - a sign that they were not able to issue new paper to replace maturing securities.The issuers were American Home Mortgage Investment Corp, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, Luminent Mortgage Capital, a property fund with problem mortgage investments, and Aladdin Capital, an asset manager.The issue hit home on Tuesday when Rams Home Loans announced that earnings in the current financial year would be hit by "materially higher spreads" in its CP funding program.A feature of the CP market is that issuing banks can be called upon to provide liquidity support in cases where their customers cannot roll over their paper. In such cases the bank converts the paper to debt.A number of conduits (which sell commercial paper short term to finance long term, mortgage-backed securities) have come under pressure because of the re-rating of mortgage securities and the resulting increased funding costs."There are fewer buyers of the paper those conduits are issuing, and those that are buying are demand a higher risk premium."Commonwealth Bank head of Premium Business Services, Stuart Grimshaw, said the bank had had no calls made on it to provide liquidity support.Grimshaw said: "It is early days. We don't do a lot in that market. If we were called upon we would fund normally."Grimshaw said he was monitoring reports that some liquidity support providers in the US had declined to give support in recent days, arguing that their clients were facing credit problems rather than liquidity issues."We are not sure what that means, just yet," Grimshaw said.