Yesterday, Dan Wiener, editor of The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors discussed the surprising lack of bond funds and ETF’s in the Vanguard lineup to compete with existing BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) iShares offerings.

In particular, Wiener was looking for offerings in the municipal and foreign bond markets, where filings for new funds did not result an any actual products.

Barron’s Brendan Conway got the answer from a Vanguard spokesman:

“Vanguard expects to introduce a short-term TIPS fund and ETF in the fourth quarter, and plan on unveiling two international bond funds/ETFs in 2013. We withdrew our filing for three municipal bond ETFs in January 2011. There are no plans to move forward at this time, although we continue to evaluate the product.”

According to the spokesman, those plans are in addition to the launch of the company’s U.K. ETFs midyear and a second series of ETFs in Canada announced last week. The timframe of 2013 is longer than anticipated.

As for the anticipated muni-bond launches that did not occur and any new muni-bond ETF’s in the works, the spokesman had this to say:

“At the time, the municipal market was quite volatile and we were concerned about launching new products in such an environment. Again, we haven’t shut the door on municipal ETFs.”