BlackRock, the world's largest money manager with $4.3 trillion, has made three attempts in as many years to draw attention to a corporate bond market that it says is broken. One of its main proposals for making trading easier is for corporate issuers to standardize the sizes, maturities and times of year that they raise money, on grounds that it would reduce the number of outstanding bonds.

"What we've heard so far is very little desire from companies to standardize," Kevin Corgan, head of North American credit trading at JPMorgan, said Thursday at an industry conference sponsored by Tabb Group LLC in New York. Banks such as JPMorgan can't drive the process, he said. Rather, "it's really about the companies themselves having a desire to standardize," he said.

Mike Buchanan, head of global credit at Western Asset, agreed. "I don't necessarily think that's the answer, but I do like that these types of conversations are happening," he said during the same panel discussion. "I don't think you're going to see dramatic improvements in liquidity due just to standardization." Western Asset manages $466 billion.