Institutional investors are facing the expansion of private credit as an asset class increasingly available to a segment of the retail investment community, according to a new report by the CFA Institute Research & Policy Center.

“The market has grown significantly — [approximately] tenfold between 2010, when it was about US$250 billion, to more than $2.6 trillion in assets under management as of mid 2025,” says Cheryll-Ann Wilson, a finance and technology scholar and a senior affiliate with the CFA Institute. “It also started to reach a much wider investment base through like semi-liquid funds.”

Market risk and regulatory complexity is evolving within private credit as it becomes more available to retail and semi-retail channels, Wilson argued in the report.

Read: Bank of Canada monitoring private credit industry as pension plan sponsors, insurers dominate investments

Private credit is seeing this expansion through semi-liquid funds, non-traded business development companies, feeder structures, digital platforms and regulated........

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