On 10 July 2025, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) published a horizon-scanning report on the interconnections between banks and non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs).

The report is part of the BCBS on-going analysis of risks and vulnerabilities to the banking system. It uses trends and case studies to set out plausible stress scenarios that could impact the safety and soundness of banks. The report makes the following conclusions:

• Banks are exposed to NBFIs, giving rise to a full range of risks including credit, market, liquidity, operational and counterparty risks. NBFIs are also exposed to banks through short-term cash placements, investment in securities issued by banks and trading activities.
• Linkages between banks and NBFIs have been likely shaped by the regulatory reforms since the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). While the reforms have made the banking system more resilient, differences between bank and NBFI regulations may have incentivised the shift of business activities to the NBFI sector, which is drawing on services provided by banks.
• Notwithstanding banks’ increased resilience since the GFC, their central role as providers of services to NBFIs may make the system as a whole vulnerable to procyclical reactions during market stress. Distress in the NBFI sector may prompt banks to reduce their risk via margin calls, loan cutbacks and asset sales.
• Granular, timely, high-frequency data are essential to understand and monitor bank-NBFI linkages, but supervisors may not have access to the data they would need to comprehensively map these linkages. Potential improvements for supervisory data include increasing granularity and frequency.

Next steps

The BCBS will continue to monitor and investigate the interconnections between banks and NBFIs with a particular focus on synthetic risk transfers (SRTs). The investigation will seek to better assess the benefits and risks posed by SRTs.