Private Credit: Trying To Count The Cockroaches

MoneyBanking & InsurancePrivate Credit: Trying To Count The CockroachesByMayra Rodriguez Valladares,Senior Contributor.Follow AuthorMay 11, 2026, 09:56am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.By the time CEO Jamie Dimon spotted the first cockroach, the walls were already full of them.Getty ImagesIn October 2025, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon issued a blunt warning after two high-profile private credit defaults — an auto parts manufacturer and a subprime auto lender — rattled the shadow banking world. "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more." It was an unusually candid comment from the person who runs America’ most powerful bank. What Dimon did not mention was that JPMorgan, along with the five other largest U.S. globally systemically important banks, had spent almost a decade quietly building massive exposure to the very ecosystem he was warning about.The 10-Q filings for the first quarter of 2026 have really peeled back the curtain. For the first time, America's top six GSIBs — Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, — disclosed the specific scale of their lending to non-depository financial institutions (NDFIs) such as private credit funds, hedge funds, business development companies, mortgage originators, Collateralized Loan Obligations, (CLO) vehicles, and asset managers. The numbers were staggering.Q1 2026 earnings season was the first in which major banks provided granular, named disclosure of private credit exposure as a distinct sub-category within their NDFI portfoliosPublic DataA Trillion Dollars in the ShadowsNon Depository Financial Institutions (NDFIs) are financial companies that like banks, underwrite loans, but are not allowed to take deposits. That then means that bank regulators do not supervise and examine them. These institutions, often referred to as non-banks or shadow banks are...