Forwards or Backwards

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The Shadow Banking System: The Trillions You Cannot See

Published · 38 min

Watch on YouTube

More than half of the world's financial assets now sit outside the banking system. This documentary explains what non-bank financial intermediation actually is, how it rebuilt the fragility of a bank outside the rules written for banks, and what happened in 2008, in March 2020 and in the UK gilt crisis of 2022.

Every figure carries its source and date, drawn from the Financial Stability Board's Global Monitoring Report, the Bank of England's system-wide exploratory scenario, the Federal Reserve's Financial Stability Report and the IMF.

Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.

In these topics

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Chapters

  1. The money you cannot see
  2. What a bank actually does
  3. The same job, outside the perimeter
  4. Measuring the sector
  5. The dollar that promises to be a dollar
  6. Repo: borrowing against securities
  7. Securitisation and the chain
  8. 2007: when the paper stopped rolling
  9. September 2008: breaking the buck
  10. What the crisis actually taught
  11. The rules that followed
  12. March 2020: the dash for cash
  13. Leverage without a balance sheet
  14. The Treasury basis trade
  15. September 2022: the British lesson
  16. Private credit: the newest layer
  17. The bank–non-bank nexus
  18. Testing the system deliberately
  19. What would actually make it safer
  20. The trillions you cannot see

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Sources and credits

Primary sources

  • Financial Stability Board, Global Monitoring Report on Nonbank Financial Intermediation 2025 (published 16 December 2025, 2024 data) — $256.8tn, 51% of global financial assets, 9.4% growth, narrow measure $76.3tn, 29 jurisdictions.
  • Bank of England, System-Wide Exploratory Scenario final report (29 November 2024) — GBP 94bn margin calls, GBP 92bn to banks, GBP 16.5bn LDI recapitalisation, GBP 4.7bn gilt sales against GBP 38bn in 2022, 8-9% MMF redemptions, five-bank corporate bond concentration.
  • Congressional Research Service R48512, Nonbank Financial Intermediation — US NBFI $85.7tn (2023), MMFs $7.1tn (Nov 2024), $21tn runnable instruments, 56-to-1 Treasury repo leverage (Dec 2022), Reserve Primary Fund breaking the buck, 16 September 2008.
  • Federal Reserve, Financial Stability Report, May 2026 — hedge fund gross notional leverage near record (Q3 2025), $2.6tn bank credit commitments to non-banks (Q4 2025).
  • International Monetary Fund, Fast-Growing $2 Trillion Private Credit Market Warrants Closer Watch (April 2024).

Not regulated financial advice.