Non-bank financial firms tend to cut lending during crises, worsening bouts of financial turbulence, research published by the Bank for International Settlements finds.

Iñaki Aldasoro, Sebastian Doerr and Haonan Zhou analyse data from global syndicated lending. They estimate around a third of syndicated lenders are non-banks, and their “global presence” has risen since the 1990s to account for around 20% of syndicated lending today.

The authors start by showing that non-banks cut their credit