A second reason for CBA's plan to raise some extra capital is simply to keep the growth in the capital base in line with lending growth."The call for funds from the consumer markets continues to be very strong," chief financial officer David Craig told a conference call for analysts yesterday."I am not saying we've exceeded our target yet, but there's very strong growth on the consumer side and the corporate side."There's an increasing need for re-intermediation by some of our customers who are having trouble funding themselves in debt capital markets and who are turning to banks for help."And you see players vacate the field. Macquarie Bank last week in mortgages. There may be others. There are fewer players at the moment. That clearly reduces supply."Craig said, "The Reserve Bank has talked about banks having to ration lending. You've heard a couple of other banks say they may need to ration lending."We don't really want that to be the case. We want to be there for the customer. This is the best way."I want to repeat this is nothing to do with the state of our existing debts. We're very comfortable with our position in that."