Private credit and the relocation of risk in modern finance
Private credit
Fecha: mayo 2026
Javier Pino and José Manuel Amor
SEFO, Spanish and International Economic & Financial Outlook, V. 15 N.º 3 (May 2026)
The rapid expansion of non-bank financial intermediation since 2008 has reshaped the global credit landscape, with private credit growing from roughly $400 billion in 2020 to nearly $1.8 trillion today. This segment now concentrates many of the tensions shaping the current cycle: opaque valuations, liquidity mismatches, continued reliance on bank funding, and rising exposure to sectors facing refinancing pressure and technological disruption. Recent stress points in U.S. evergreen business development companies (BDCs)—publicly listed vehicles that provide financing to mid-sized firms—and the acceleration of synthetic risk transfers (SRTs)—transactions through which banks transfer credit risk to investors without selling the underlying loans—in Europe illustrate how these vulnerabilities are manifesting. In the United States, liquidity promises attached to illiquid loans have been tested by valuation gaps and rising redemption pressure. In Europe, banks have used SRTs to release regulatory capital while often retaining the underlying exposures, raising questions about how much risk is actually being transferred and how incentives to monitor borrowers evolve after the transfer. The picture is not one of imminent systemic crisis, but of mounting friction within an increasingly complex financial architecture. Credit risk has shifted into structures with different transparency, governance, and loss-absorption dynamics, while remaining closely interconnected with the banking system. Understanding where that risk ultimately resides, and how it would behave under stress, has become central to assessing financial stability in this cycle.