New York-based Morgan Stanley yesterday issued $4 billion in five- and 10-year notes in its largest dollar-denominated debt sale since last May, as banks this week sold debt at the quickest pace since at least 1998, Bloomberg reported.

Morgan Stanley and the Bank of Nova Scotia led the way with about $22.5 billion in U.S. corporate bond sales.

Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest bank in terms of assets, sold $2.5 billion in bonds in a two-part offering on Jan. 19 and banks accounted for at least $11 billion in overall issuance, according to Bloomberg.

Rajeev Sharma, a portfolio manager at First Investors Management in New York, said rekindled confidence in the financial sector may be spurring banks to take advantage of an opportunity to raise capital before new regulations, intended to limit banks’ size and trading activities, take effect.

“There is still a lot of uncertainty with what will happen with banks in the backdrop of this financial reform,” Sharma said. “As long as these reforms are still proposals, there’s a good opportunity to get in the market now.”

New issues from banks this month total $54 billion, compared with $32.1 billion for the same period last year. Data from 1999 to 2009 show that banks typically have sold about $30.4 billion of debt each January.