Shadow banking: dimensions, actors and risks. Some Italian declinations

Abstract

The shadow banking system has seen incredible, constant and rapid development in recent decades. Created to facilitate the traditional banking system in short-term financing, repos, increased leverage and credit securitization, it has played (and still plays) a fundamental role in fueling an ever-increasing financialization of the economy, the predominance of finance over the real economy, with associated systemic risks. In 2023, the size of the non-banking financial institutions (NBFI) sector increased by 8.5% compared to the previous year, more than double the growth rate of the banking sector, bringing the share of non-banking financial institutions in total global financial assets to 49.1%. In 2025, the share of non-bank financial institutions (NBFI) rose to 50%, equal to approximately $250 trillion, with shadow banking narrowly measured at $70.2 trillion (+9.8%). In Italy, the set of non-banking financial institutions that operate outside of regulated circuits appears more contained, supervised and controlled in its possible consequences of systemic risk.