Shadow banking is generally unregulated and not subject to the same kinds of risk, liquidity, and capital restrictions as traditional banks are. The shadow banking system played a major role in the expansion of housing credit in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

“The problem with 'shadows' is that they do not foster transparency – so the size of the correction is difficult to predict,” says Copsey from ABL Business. Higher interest rates may shrink asset valuations that were previously inflated due to cheap debt, leading to liquidity challenges and even insolvencies.

The term "shadow banking system" is attributed to Paul McCulley of PIMCO, who coined it at Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2007 where he defined it as "the whole alphabet soup of levered up non-bank investment conduits, vehicles, and structures." McCulley identified ...

2 During the financial crisis, the system came under severe strain, and many parts of it collapsed. The emergence of shadow banking thus shifted the systemic risk-return trade-off toward cheaper credit intermediation during booms, at the cost of more severe crises and more expensive intermediation during downturns.