The country’s largest commercial lenders face an increasingly “competitive threat” from private credit, which had significantly outstripped the growth in traditional debt, as risk-averse banks create a “structural” change in the market.

That’s the view of brokers at Citi, who have told clients that the reticence of local banks to lend to indebted companies and for commercial real estate had opened the door for fund managers to lend to businesses at higher rates.