Investors need a connected platform for data, analytics, and risk oversight.
Investors in private markets are increasingly seeking improved transparency, driven by three key trends: expanded access, the rise of private credit and non-traded BDCs, and a changing regulatory landscape.
Regulatory expectations are rising
During BlackRock’s second-quarter earnings call on July 15, Chief Financial Officer Martin Small pointed to the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed safe harbor rule as one example of this shift. The proposal would establish a process for fiduciaries considering private assets in 401(k) retirement plans and require them to assess factors including performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, performance benchmarks, and complexity.
For investors, this raises the bar for the evidence supporting private markets allocations. Data quality, transparent reporting, and consistent documentation are becoming central to demonstrating that investment decisions are well understood and appropriately governed.
Expanding access to private markets
Private markets are also reaching more investors. In addition to retirement plans, BlackRock leadership pointed to insurers’ increasing demand for private markets access as they seek higher yields.
Meanwhile, wealth managers are looking to private markets as they aim to balance long-term private investments with liquid, dynamic sources of return and risk management, according to Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink.
Broader participation increases the need for transparency and investor confidence. Firms need to understand exposures, liquidity, performance, and risk in ways that can be explained consistently across portfolios and audiences.
Private credit continues to scale
Private credit is one of the clearest examples of how private markets are becoming larger and more complex.
Global private credit AUM reached $1.78 trillion in September 2025, according to Preqin’s most recent quarterly update. That’s up from $1.1 trillion in December 2020. Within private credit, U.S.-based business development companies (BDCs) have seen rapid expansion since 2015, giving investors access to a more transparent asset within the market. The value of BDC gross assets crossed $500 billion in 2026, according to Preqin data.
This growth was a key point that Fink mentioned on BlackRock’s first-quarter earnings call, noting that “private credit has scaled rapidly, but risk infrastructure supporting it has not kept pace.” He further emphasized that institutional demand for the asset class will continue to rise.
As these markets scale, investors face a more demanding set of questions: where exposures are concentrated, how performance is changing, what liquidity constraints may exist, and how private credit risk interacts with the rest of the portfolio.
What does this mean for investors?
Taken together, these trends point to a clear conclusion: transparency is becoming foundational to private markets participation. Investors need confidence not only in individual private assets, but also in how those assets fit within the broader portfolio.
That becomes harder when data, analytics, reporting, and workflows are fragmented across systems.
This is where infrastructure matters. On the earnings call, Fink emphasized the need for “a seamless blending of public and private markets across our portfolio,” while Small noted that firms are accelerating technology spend and consolidating around fewer providers with deep integrations across fintech and data ecosystems.
For private markets investors, transparency will increasingly depend on infrastructure: connected data, consistent analytics, appropriate benchmarks, and integrated reporting that give teams a deeper understand of their portfolios.
Key takeaway
The next phase of private markets growth will depend not only on access, but on the transparency required to invest with confidence.
Five key questions for investors:
- Data: Can you view public and private assets consistently across portfolios?
- Benchmarking: Do you have appropriate benchmarks for private assets?
- Risk: Can you assess exposures across public and private investments using consistent analytics?
- Reporting: Can teams generate reporting from a trusted source of truth?
- Regulatory readiness: Can investment decisions be supported by consistent performance and benchmarking data?
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