Bendigo and Adelaide Bank remains worried over the availability, and price even if available, of retail and wholesale funding. So in turn, the bank wonders about its ability to effectively compete even as wholesale credit markets begin to settle.Robert Johansen, chair of the bank, told the annual meeting in Bendigo yesterday that "funding remains the biggest issue for all banks."He noted, though, that of the Australian banks only Bendigo, and also Rural Bank (controlled by Bendigo) had not called on the Australian government guarantee to access wholesale markets offshore.Mike Hirst, the bank's chief executive, told the meeting that "obtaining enough funding to take full advantage of the opportunity before us remains a challenge."Wholesale funding markets are likely to improve in current months but the big question remains to what extent this improvement will result in a sustainable source of economic funding for the whole economy."One change Bendigo aspires to is a lift in its credit rating from BBB+.Hirst rattled through a few structural shifts in the bank's business arising from the merger of the old Bendigo and Adelaide banks and contended: "We do believe our company has never been in a better position to achieve a credit rating upgrade."We are a larger and stronger organisation and will continue to work with the ratings agencies to achieve a ratings upgrade."Operational risk issues will be one factor bearing on that analysis, and Johansen did acknowledge a couple of (already well known) issues yesterday."Some of our third-party lending relationships … left us vulnerable to the failure of intermediaries and to fraud," Johansen said, a reference to the fleecing by Australian Motor Finance of the bank, a fraud uncovered in early 2009 and for which the bank has mostly made recoveries.He also noted the bank was "left open to entrepreneurial, opportunistic litigation", a reference to the many delinquent loans made to investors in forestry schemes promoted by Great Southern.The bank's approach to managing credit risk received a mention.Referring to commercial property lending it was "now apparent," he said, "[lending] was for developments that were themselves dependant on boom conditions being maintained."On the other hand, Johansen, said: "Overwhelmingly our business model has been vindicated by these testing conditions."