As a result, market-based sources of finance are now more cost effective for a wider range of companies and one would expect them to respond to this with increased bond issuance. At the moment, parts of the corporate sector can access the bond market at a cheaper price than banks can.
As mentioned earlier, there has been increased appetite for debt issued by lower-rated companies at attractive prices for the issuer and at longer maturities than they would normally get from a bank. How much of this is a function of the current global interest rate environment remains to be seen, but there is a reasonable prospect that some of these developments will be long-lasting.