Private Credit AIFs: Lenders of Last Resort?

Simrat Singh | Finserv@vinodkothari.com

Private credit is becoming a new force in India’s lending ecosystem. As traditional banks and NBFCs operate under the strict regulations on capital, exposure and asset quality norms, they are often unable, or unwilling to cater to certain borrowers. In addition, for banks in particular, what kind of lending opportunities can be tapped is often a matter of having typecast lending products, policies and procedures. This leaves occasional, however, lucrative gaps in funding needs which are not serviced by regulated lenders. Into these gaps step in Private Credit AIFs (in India), Business Development Companies (BDCs) and Private Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) (in the USA and Australia), these funds can structure deals creatively, customise financing to borrower needs and capture higher-yield opportunities that conventional lenders must pass over. What is emerging is a parallel channel of credit, one that is nimble, agile and focused.

Globally, this shift hasn’t gone unnoticed. Policymakers and institutions like the IMF have flagged the risks tied to private credit markets, especially around opacity, leverage and borrower quality (see below). Yet in India, the momentum continues to build. Tight constraints on banks, the rise of alternative asset managers and the unmet capital needs of businesses beyond the traditional credit universe are all fuelling rapid expansion.

This article examines what private credit is, why it is growing in India, the risks associated with this market and whether their growth creates regulatory arbitrage relative to banks and NBFCs.

What is Private Credit?

As per an IMF paper¹, private credit is defined as “non-bank corporate credit provided through bilateral agreements or small “club deals” outside the realm of public securities or commercial banks. This definition excludes bank loans, broadly syndicated loans, and funding provided through publicly traded assets such as corporate bonds.

Simply, private credit is the lending by non-bank and non-NBFCs. The sector predominantly involves alternative asset managers² who raise capital from institutional investors using closed-end funds and lend directly to predominantly middle-market firms³.

How is it Different From Normal Credit?

Unlike traditional credit, private credit is typically tailored to the specific needs of each borrower. Repayment terms can, for instance, be aligned with the timing of a funding round or disbursements can be structured to match capital expenditure plans. Interest rates may also be designed on a step-up basis, linked to the borrower’s turnover. Many elements that are otherwise rigid under RBI-regulated lending can be flexibly structured in private credit (see table 2 below). This flexibility is especially valuable for start-ups and small businesses, which often require customised financing solutions that traditional lenders may be unable to provide. 

Parameter	Private Credit	Traditional Credit
Source of Capita	Private debt funds (Category II AIFs), investors like HNIs, family offices, institutional investors	Banks, NBFCs and mutual funds
Target Borrowers	Companies lacking access to banks; SMEs, mid-market firms, high-growth businesses	Higher-rated, established borrowers.
Deal Structure	Bespoke, customised, structured financing	Standardised loan products
Flexibility	High flexibility in terms, covenants, and structuring	Restricted by regulatory norms and rigid approval processes
Returns	Higher yields (approx. 10–25%)	Lower yields (traditional fixed-income)
Risk Level	Higher risk due to borrower profile and limited diversification	Lower risk due to stronger credit profiles and diversified portfolios
Regulation	Light SEBI AIF regulations; fewer lending restrictions	Heavily regulated by RBI and sector-specific norms
Liquidity	Closed-ended funds; limited exit options	More liquid; established repayment structures; some products have secondary markets
Diversification	Limited number of deals; concentrated portfolios	Broad, diversified loan books
Role in Market	Fills credit gaps not served by traditional lenders	Core credit providers in the financial system

Table 1: Differences between private credit and traditional credit

How Much of it is in India?

Global private credit assets under management have quadrupled over the past decade to US$2.1 trillion in 2023⁴. Compared with the rest of the world, the private credit market in India is very small, with estimated assets under management of $25 billion to $30 billion as of March 31, 2025, representing about 0.6% of India’s GDP and 30-35% of the total investments made by AIFs in India.⁵

Figure 1: Private credit share (1%) as a part of overall corporate lending. Source: RBI, AMFI

Figure 2:  Size of Private Credit Market. Source: RBI

Reasons for Rise in Private Credit?

Private credit is expanding rapidly because it steps in where traditional banks hesitate. It provides capital for last-mile project completion, cost overruns and promoter equity infusion; areas that fall outside the comfort zone of regulated lending. The asset class has also delivered consistently higher risk-adjusted returns, a compelling draw for global and domestic investors, especially through long phases of low interest rates.⁶

A key advantage lies in its flexibility. Private lenders can tailor covenants⁷, link returns to cash flows and restructure repayment terms during stress, offering a level of customisation that conventional bank credit cannot match. For investors, this translates into both diversification and access to high-growth segments that remain beyond the scope of mainstream credit markets.

Sector specific regulatory gaps: There is a concern that tighter bank regulation will continue to encourage the migration of credit from banks to private credit lenders⁸. Certain regulatory restrictions on banks directly push borrowers toward private credit:

1. Real estate: Banks cannot lend for land acquisition (Para 3.3.1, Master Circular – Housing Finance), leading to real estate becoming a major private-credit segment, accounting for about one-third of all private credit deals.⁹

2. Mergers & acquisitions: Banks are not expected to lend to promoters for acquiring shares of other companies (Para 2.3.1.6, Master Circular – Loans and Advances). Consequently, 35% of private credit deals involve M&A financing. However, RBI’s Draft Directions on Acquisition Finance proposes to somewhat ease this restriction.¹⁰

Apart from the above, The IBC significantly strengthened creditor rights and recovery prospects, boosting confidence among lenders and supporting the growth of private credit. At the same time, many borrowers, particularly smaller firms, those with weak earnings, high leverage or insufficient collateral, struggle to access bank loans making private credit a natural alternative¹¹. This shift was further accelerated by an extended period of low global interest rates, which pushed investors to seek higher-yielding opportunities and increased capital flows into private credit strategies.

The most common structure for channelising private credit is an AIF – more specifically, a Category II AIF. A ‘Private Credit AIF’ is essentially an AIF whose primary investment strategy is direct debt financing (by investing in debt instruments) to borrowers outside the conventional banking/syndicated loan market. Since AIFs are not subject to the same regulatory framework as traditional lenders (for example, no deposit-taking, no CRR/SLR requirements etc.), they can offer tailor-made structures such as step‐up interest rates, bullet repayments, equity warrants, convertible features, etc. 

A private credit fund requires long-term, stable capital, and frequent redemption demands can disrupt lending strategy. A closed-ended Category II AIF structure suits this model well, as it locks in investor capital for the fund’s life and prevents premature withdrawals. Private credit deals are idiosyncratic and difficult for outside parties to value or trade, lenders typically rely on long-term pools of locked-up capital for financing. One advantage AIFs have over mutual funds is that mutual funds are restricted to investing only up to 10% of their debt portfolio in unlisted plain vanilla NCDs.

Compared to private equity or venture capital, where performance depends heavily on market conditions and timing exits, private credit offers returns that are largely predetermined by contract. The trade-off, however, is that like most AIFs, these investments typically come with multi-year lock-ins and fewer exit opportunities, underscoring their inherently illiquid nature. Typically, investors which can commit long term capital are well-suited to invest in such AIFs – such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds etc.

Regulatory Concerns with Growth of Private Credit?

IMF in its 2024 Global Financial Stability Report highlighted risks w.r.t rise in private credit since its growth comes with several structural weaknesses that make the market vulnerable, especially in a downturn. Its rapid expansion is happening largely outside traditional regulatory oversight and because the market has not been stress-tested, the true scale of risk remains unclear. Borrowers tend to be smaller and more leveraged and with most loans being floating-rate, repayment stress can escalate quickly when interest rates rise. Although private credit funds’ leverage appears low compared with other lenders, end borrowers tend to be more highly leveraged than those in public markets, increasing the risks to financial stability.¹²

Instruments such as PIK interest¹³ only defer the problem, increasing loss severity if performance deteriorates. Liquidity is another pressure point since private credit funds are inherently illiquid. Risk is further amplified by layers of hidden leverage, at the borrower, SPV, investor and fund level making contagion hard to track. Layers of leverage are created by the AIF lending against equity to a holding entity, which infuses the equity into an operating company, and the operating company borrowing against such equity.

Because loans are private, unrated and rarely traded, valuation is opaque and losses may remain masked until too late. Growing competition also risks weakening underwriting standards and covenant discipline, particularly as larger banks participate in private deals.

Practical challenges add to this vulnerability. Collateral enforcement may not always hold up legally, say due to restrictions on transferability of collateral (say, shares of a private company). Equity-linked security is volatile as well, and during distress, equity tends to lose its value almost completely. In essence, private credit offers flexibility and returns, but its opacity, leverage, illiquidity and weaker borrower profiles create risks that could surface sharply in stress conditions. Private credit certainly warrants closer attention. Nonbank lenders, especially private credit funds, have grown rapidly in recent years, adding to financial stability risks because they are less transparent and not as firmly regulated.

Do private credit AIFs create any regulatory arbitrage?

What you cannot do directly, you cannot do indirectly – the age-old maxim might apply in case a RE which is otherwise barred by RBI for an object, uses the AIF route to achieve that object. Below we examine some of the distinctions in the regulatory oversight: 

Function	Private Credit AIFs	RE
Credit & Investment rules
Credit underwriting standards	No regulatory prescription	No such specific rating-linked limits. However, improper underwriting will increase NPAs in the future.
Lending decision	Manager-led Investment Committee under Reg. 20(7) may decide lending Manager controls composition of IC; IC may include internal/external members; IC responsibilities may be waived if investor commitment ≥₹70 Cr w/ undertaking Primarily i.e. the main thrust should be in: – Unlisted securities; and/or – Listed debt rated ‘A’ or below	Lending decisions guided by Board-approved credit policy
Exposure norms	Max 25% of investible funds in one investee company.	Exposure is limited to 25% of Tier 1 Capital per borrower and 40% per borrower group for NBFC ML; No such limit for NBFC BL. Banks can lend maximum upto 15% of their Tier 1 + Tier 2 capital to a single borrower. Large exposure norms may apply in case of banks and Upper Layer NBFCs
End-use restrictions	None prescribed under AIF Regulations, results in high investment flexibility	Banks cannot lend for land acquisition or for funding a M&A deal [refer ‘sector-specific regulatory gaps’ above] NBFCs do not have any such restrictions. They do have internal limits on sensitive sector exposures which includes capital market and commercial real estate [See Para 92 of SBR]
Related party transactions	Need 75% investors consent [reg 15(1)(e)]	Board approval mandatory for loans ≥₹5 Cr to directors/relatives/interested entities; Disclosure + abstention from decision-making;Loans to senior officers requires Board reporting [See para 93 of SBR]
Capital, Liquidity & Leverage Requirements
Capital requirements	No regulatory prescription as the entire capital of the fund is unit capital	Minimum net owned funds of ₹10 Cr, CRAR 15% for NBFC-ML and above [See para 133.1 of SBR]9% CRAR in case of banks,
Liquidity & ALM	Uninvested funds may be parked in liquid assets (MFs, T-Bills, CP/CDs, deposits etc.) [15(1)(f)]	NBFC asset size more than 100 Cr. have to do LRM [Para 26]
Leverage limits	No leverage permitted at AIF level for investment activities Only operational borrowing allowed	Leverage ratio of BL NBFC cannot be more than 7 No restriction on NBFC ML however, CRAR of 15% makes results into leverage limit of 5.6 times  For Banks, in addition to CRAR,  there is  minimum leverage ratio is 4%
Monitoring, Restructuring and Settlements
Loan monitoring	No regulatory prescription	RBI-defined SMA classification, special monitoring, provisioning & reporting.
Compromise & settlements	No regulatory prescription	Governed by RBI’s Compromise & Settlement Framework
Governance, Oversight & Compliance
Governance & oversight	Operate in interest of investors Timely dissemination of info Effective risk management process and internal controls Have written policies for conflict of interest, AML. Prohibit any unethical means to sell/market/induce investors Annual audit of PPM termsAudit of accounts  15(1)(i) – investments shall be in demat form  Valuation of investments every 6 months	A Risk Management Committee is required for all NBFCs. [See para 39 of SBR] AC [94.1], NRC [94], CRO [95] ID and internal guidelines on CG [100] required for NBFC-ML and above
Diversity of borrowers	Private credit AIFs usually have 15-20 borrowers.	Far more diversified  as compared to AIFs
Pricing	Freely negotiated which allows for high structuring flexibility	Guided by internal risk model

Table 2: Differences in regulatory oversight between AIFs and Regulated Entities (REs)

The core difference between private credit AIFs and RBI-regulated lenders lies in regulatory intent. SEBI is a disclosure-driven market regulator, it relies on transparency, governance and informed investor choice. RBI is a prudential regulator tasked with protecting systemic stability, and therefore imposes capital buffers, exposure limits and stricter supervision. Private credit AIFs operate within SEBI’s lighter, disclosure-based approach, while banks and NBFCs function under RBI’s risk-averse framework. This does not always create arbitrage, but it does allow credit activity to grow outside the prudential perimeter. As private credit scales, a coordinated SEBI-RBI framework may be necessary to preserve flexibility without compromising financial stability. 

It is important to recognise that Category I and Category II AIFs are prohibited from taking long-term leverage. As a result, any loss arising from their lending or investment exposures does not cascade into the wider financial system. Therefore, concerns around applying capital adequacy requirements to these AIF categories are largely unwarranted.

Conclusion

Though still a small fragment of India’s wider corporate lending landscape, private credit AIFs are steadily gaining ground reaching those nooks and crannies of credit demand that banks and NBFCs often cannot, or would not, serve. Their ability to operate beyond the traditional comfort zone of regulated lenders is what makes this segment structurally relevant and increasingly attractive to borrowers and investors alike.

At the same time, rapid expansion brings the potential for regulatory arbitrage. The RBI has already acknowledged this risk, most notably through its actions on evergreening via AIF structures, ultimately resulting in exposure caps of 10% for individual regulated entities and 20% collectively, along with mandatory full provisioning where exposure exceeds 5% in an AIF lending to the same borrower. These measures serve as guardrails to prevent private credit vehicles from functioning as an indirect tool for evergreening of loans. 

1. IMF Global Financial Stability Report 2024 ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. A middle-market firm is a firm that is typically too small to issue public debt and requires financing amounts too large for a single bank because of its size and risk profile. The size of middle-market firms varies widely. In the United States, they are sometimes defined as businesses with between $100 million and $1 billion in annual revenue. ↩︎
4. IMF Global Financial Stability Report 2024 and Federal Reserve Note dated May 23, 2025 ↩︎
5. India’s private credit market is coming of age: S&P Global and SEBI Data ↩︎
6. RBI’s Financial Stability Report June 2024 ↩︎
7. Customized lending terms can include, for example, the option to capitalize interest payments (that is, pay in kind) in times of poor liquidity ↩︎
8. Cai and Haque 2024 ↩︎
9. India’s private credit market is coming of age: S&P Global ↩︎
10. See our article ‘Draft RBI Directions: Banks may finance Acquisitions’ ↩︎
11. Chernenko, Erel, and Prilmeier 2022 ↩︎
12. Growth in Global Private Credit: Reserve Bank of Australia ↩︎
13.  Payment-in-kind (PIK) is noncash compensation, usually by treating accrued interest as an extension of the loan. ↩︎

See our other resources of Alternative Investment Funds here