KPMG warns executives lack visibility into private credit risks

Only 14% of financial services executives say they are fully aware of their firms’ exposure to private credit, a gap that leaves boardrooms and risk teams trying to explain a market that has grown faster than many oversight systems can track. Neil Connor, KPMG UK’s head of asset management and a partner in its Financial Services Deals team, called the lack of understanding “alarming” and asked how consumers can be expected to manage risks if senior leaders cannot.

The scale makes the problem harder to ignore. The International Monetary Fund said in April 2024 that global private credit had topped $2.1 trillion in assets and committed capital, with about three-quarters of activity in the United States. The Bank for International Settlements said private credit funds grew from about $0.2 billion in the early 2000s to more than $2,500 billion today, a jump that has turned the asset class into a major source of corporate financing.

That growth has pushed private credit onto the radar of regulators and central banks. On May 6, 2026, the Financial Stability Board said private credit had expanded rapidly to an estimated $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in assets and warned that it can create financial stability risks even as it supports financing for mid-sized companies. On December 4, 2025, the Bank of England launched a system-wide exploratory scenario exercise focused on private markets, including private credit and leveraged lending, to test how stress could spread through the wider ecosystem.

KPMG has framed the boom as part of the post-financial-crisis lending shift, saying in a January 2026 briefing that private credit helped support the real economy as bank lending became more constrained after the global financial crisis. But the firm said that same success story has intensified regulatory and central bank scrutiny. For finance, risk and deals teams inside firms, the consequence is practical: if executives cannot map the exposure, those teams are the ones left to brief boards, withstand audit questions and explain where liquidity or valuation pressure could surface first.

KPMG’s UK Financial Services Update 2Q24 said non-bank private financing picked up noticeably, while its 4Q24 update said activity remained limited. It also noted that the volume of growth finance among UK firms fell 16.5% in real terms between 2022 and 2023. For professionals in KPMG’s audit, advisory and deal practices, the message is blunt: private credit is now too large to treat as a side issue, and too opaque for weak visibility to be anyone’s comfort zone.