The Guardian recently reported that International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva admitted the rapid rise of non-bank lending “keeps me awake every so often at night” (“Head of IMF says risks in private credit market keep her awake at night”, The Guardian, 16 October 2025). The Financial Times shares this anxiety. The private credit sector, which exceeds $3 trillion in assets, is so intertwined with the banking system that it could “amplify the next financial crisis” (“Private credit could ‘amplify’ next financial crisis, study finds”, Financial Times, 2 June 2025).
These concerns are not isolated and signal the rise of private credit as a key characteristic of contemporary finance-capitalism.
Private credit refers to loans made by non-bank institutions directly to companies, bypassing the traditional banking system. These non-bank institutions are typically private funds, pension funds, asset managers, or insurers, and these lenders raise their money from investors rather than through the traditional route of taking deposits. The private credit sector grew substantially after the 2008 crisis, as banks were subject to stricter regulation and capital requirements, leaving a gap that non-banks moved to fill. For businesses, private credit offers more flexible and quicker financing compared to banks, which may have slower or more constrained lending processes, while the private credit sources benefit because it provides a way to diversify and potentially generate higher returns. Yet these private credit firms are less regulated than banks, and the problem is they may take on higher risk without the same oversight, capital buffers, or transparency.
Two recent US-based collapses—FirstBrands and Tricolor Finance, both operating in the private credit-backed space—have elevated concerns about underwriting standards, exposure, and contagion risks (“What is private credit, and should we be worried by the collapse of US firms?”, The Guardian, 18 October 2025).
Furthermore, traditional banks are exposed indirectly because they lend to, or invest in, private credit firms. That means trouble in private credit could spill over into the regulated banking system. Part of the problem is that nobody knows the true value of the assets the private lenders are issuing, due to concerns around opaque loans and valuation issues.
In effect, the post-2008 regulatory environment constrained traditional banks but did not discipline capital itself. Instead, accumulation reformed itself through private funds, whose lack of transparency and customised contracts make them largely invisible to public scrutiny. As a recent Financial Times article noted, “Private credit thrives in darkness” (25 June 2025). When capital encounters barriers to profitable reinvestment, it seeks new arenas—whether spatial, temporal, or institutional—in which to absorb surplus value.
Private credit defers crisis into the future by monetising tomorrow’s labour today. Loans are structured based on projected cash flows that may never materialise, yet they circulate as assets generating returns in the present. In this sense, private credit is both a symptom and a strategy to overcome profitability limits through the expansion of financial claims.
The IMF’s unease reflects more than just concern; it signifies an institutional awareness of the fragility of the current arrangements. What The Guardian and Financial Times describe as a looming market vulnerability is, from a communist standpoint, an inevitable hypertrophy of finance as capital shifts to speculation to sustain itself. In this light, the sleepless nights of the IMF are not merely a warning of an impending anomaly but represent the restless awareness of crisis that characterises our troubled epoch.
