私人信贷的散户投资者（英）

BIS Bulletins are written by staff members of the Bank for International Settlements, and from time to timeby other economists, and are published by the Bank. The papers are on subjects of topical interest and aretechnical in character. The views expressed in them are those of their authors and not necessarily the viewsof the BIS. The authors are grateful to Fernando Avalos, José Berrospide, Mathias Drehmann, Jon Frost,Pablo Hernández de Cos, Ulf Lewrick, Dan Rees, Andreas Schrimpf, Amit Seru, Ilhyock Shim and VladSushko for support and comments, Yueqian Chen, Giulio Cornelli and Rudraksh Kansal for excellentanalysis and research assistance, and Nicola Faessler for administrative support.The editor of the BIS Bulletin series is Hyun Song Shin.This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org).©Bank for International Settlements 2025. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be reproduced ortranslated provided the source is stated.ISSN: 2708-0420 (online)ISBN: 978-92-9259-871-6 (online) BIS BulletinRetail investors in private creditKey takeaways•Private credit is poised for wider participation from retail investors through the rapid growth of businessdevelopment companies and, more recently, private credit exchange-traded funds (ETFs)•ETFs may introduce price signals that make the opaque private credit market more transparent,especially during downturns when discounts to net asset value could be large and persistent.•The rise of retail investment vehicles may also give impetus to the creation of secondary markets forcurrently illiquid private loans, which could erode the benefits of private credit as an asset class.Private credit has become an important source of funding for mid-sized firms, increasingly replacing bankcredit. The industry manages more than $2.2 trillion in assets globally, up from just $100 billion in 2010.In many jurisdictions, private credit volumes already rival those in the leveraged loan and high-yield bondmarkets. The migration of lending from well regulated and supervised banks to the opaque private creditsector raises important questions for investors and about the future of private markets.A striking recent development is the increasing participation of retail investors. Historically, privatecredit funds were the remit of institutional investors, but the share of assets under management (AUM)accounted for by retail investors climbed from virtually zero to 13%, or $280 billion, in the past decade.The rise has been driven by the growth of business development companies (BDCs), with exchange-tradedfunds (ETFs) entering the space more recently. BDCs, a type of closed-end private credit fund that is oftenpublicly traded, already represent 20% of the private credit market in the United States. Private credit ETFsseek to capitalise on the popularity of both ETFs and private credit. They promise retail investors higherreturns from exposure to illiquid long-term private loans while providing liquid shares that trade daily.An unresolved question is to what extent private credit’s greater openness to retail money introducesrisks for investors and financial stability. Private credit ETFs marry shares traded in a liquid market to illiquidunderlying private assets that barely trade. This mismatch could lead to the emergence of steep andpersistent discounts between the ETF price and the value of its underlying assets in periods of stress. Whilediscounts may serve as a safety valve against fire sales of illiquid assets, they can raise doubts about thequality and accurate valuation of the underlying assets and lead to losses for investors. BDCs avoid liquiditymismatches but their debt-to-equity ratio, increasingly supported by bank credit lines, has tripled over thepast 15 years and is highly procyclical. This raises concerns about their credit supply during downturnsand spillovers from non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) to banks.While risks from rising leverage require careful monitoring, addressing the issues in ETFs linked toprivate markets may present a conundrum. The risk of persistent discounts could be moderated bycreating a secondary market for private loans, ie by increasing their liquidity and raising transparency byintroducing a market price. However, an open question is whether this would dilute private credit’s veryadvantages. First, trading in secondary markets requires standardisation of loan terms, but borrowers arewilling to pay a premium for private lenders’ relationship-focused approach and tailored loan terms.Second, higher yields compensate investors for private credit’s illiquidity. And third, introducing price1Avalos et al (2025), Aldasoro and Doerr (2025) and IMF (2024) provide detailed descriptions of private credit and direct lending. 1.1 2BIS Bulletindiscovery in private markets would likely bring about demands on asset managers and their investors tomark their loan portfolios to market, rather than rely on a through-the-cycle approach.The rise of priv