Bank Filings Show Growing Exposure to Private Credit Market

After the 2008 financial crisis, tighter capital rules constrained banks, while asset managers such as Blackstone and Apollo used funds to take on financing for highly leveraged companies, expanding the private credit market to about $1.8 trillion. Because such loans are generally valued by the funds themselves and lack public-market disclosure, while banks also provide credit lines, risks could spread across institutions during an economic downturn.

On April 10, 2026, the U.S. Federal Reserve required large banks to provide detailed reports on their private credit dealings. Banks with more than $10 billion in assets had already been required to expand their disclosures since the end of 2024. Filings showed that bank lending to nondepository financial institutions rose by $129.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 to $1.57 trillion. JPMorgan Chase had about $160 billion in exposure that year.