With the end of the first half of the year out of the way, the major banks returned to bond issuance activity with vigour: none more so than Commonwealth Bank, which has about a A$30 billion funding task ahead of it for the new financial year.CBA raised the equivalent of more than A$4.4 billion last week: A$2.0 billion in the domestic market and the remainder spread over several issues in the US s144A market. However, the pricing of the domestic issue and some other bank issues suggests that credit spreads, at least for bond issues with maturities beyond three years, are moving wider again. Certainly CDS spreads have been in recent weeks. In the domestic market the CBA issued A$1.1 billion of floating rate notes and A$900 million fixed, with a July 2014 maturity and priced at a surprising 145 basis points over bank bills/swap. Admittedly, this is the first five-year, non-guaranteed, bank bond issue to be sold since the government guarantee became available, but prior indicators suggest the bonds could have priced 10 to 20 bps tighter.In mid-June, ING Bank (Australia) priced A$2.0 billion of government-guaranteed, five-year, fixed and floating rate notes at 65 bps over swap/bank bills. Allowing for the 70 bps guarantee fee, the all-up cost was 135 bps. This was very good pricing for a bank outside of the four majors.Interestingly, 135 bps equates to the swapped back cost of the CBA's most recent US s144A, five-year issues: priced at Libor plus 50 bps, add 70 bps for the guarantee fee and 15 bps for the basis swap.Last week the CBA added US$300 million and US$200 million to its June 2014, government-guaranteed, floating rate and fixed rate notes respectively, priced at Libor/swap plus 50 bps. It followed this up with a US$1.0 billion, government guaranteed, four-year FRN priced at Libor plus 42 bps and issued US$250 million for three years, priced at Libor plus 20 bps, with a government guarantee. Over the period from February to mid June, credit spreads on three-year non-guaranteed issues by the major banks contracted to 115 bps, from 130 bps. National Australia Bank was the last to price at 115 bps over when it added A$1.3 billion to its May 2012 lines.In February, five-year government-guaranteed bonds issued by the major banks were being priced at 70 bps over; the guarantee fee resulted in an all-up cost of 140 bps. Allowing for a spread contraction of 15 bps, as seen in three-year bonds, would suggest non-guaranteed five-year spreads should now be around 125 bps.Interestingly, Westpac added A$780 million and A$300 million to its March 2014 government-guaranteed, fixed and floating rate notes during the week, but did not disclose the pricing. The original pricing was 70 bps over swap/bank bills. Westpac also raised US$300 million for five years in the euromarket. With a government guarantee, the bonds priced at 90 bps over US Treasuries, which equates roughly to swap plus 50 bps.Finally, NAB raised €1.0 billion for seven years in the euromarket. The