Private credit's growing role in asset finance: a conversation with FIS

Yahoo

24-07-2025

Private credit is rapidly reshaping the asset, motor, and equipment finance landscape. Once dominated by banks and public markets, these sectors are now seeing a shift as regulatory pressure limits traditional lending — and private credit steps in as a flexible, scalable source of capital.
Unlike syndicated loans or public debt, private credit offers bespoke structures, faster execution, and funding aligned with real-world collateral like fleets, equipment, or receivables.
As PwC notes, it's not just mimicking traditional finance, it's building a more tailored, efficient system for connecting borrowers and investors. This is no longer a marginal trend. As of September 2024, combined unrealised value and dry powder in private debt reached $1.05 trillion, a 94% increase since 2019, according to Preqin and S&P Capital IQ data
Asset finance providers are tapping into this trend through co-lending, forward flow deals, and structured facilities that blend traditional and alternative capital.
To explore how technology is supporting this evolution, Alejandro Gonzalez (AG), editor of Leasing Life, spoke with Murad Baig (MB), Global Equipment and Auto Finance Strategy Lead, Capital Markets at FIS, about how private credit is changing the rules, and how the right platforms are helping lenders adapt.
MB: How is your technology helping private credit funds streamline the origination and underwriting process specifically for asset finance transactions?
AG: Private credit funds are under pressure to deploy capital quickly while maintaining underwriting discipline, especially in asset-heavy sectors like equipment leasing, auto finance, and energy transition infrastructure.
FIS helps address this through a unified origination platform that streamlines onboarding, credit memo creation, and real-time stipulation checks using AI. Our tools automate financial spreading, risk scoring (PD, LGD, EL), and scenario analysis, significantly reducing underwriting time while ensuring consistency and control.
We also support structural flexibility, allowing lenders to incorporate ESG-linked KPIs, PIK interest, and covenant tracking into deals. This adaptability is crucial for private credit's bespoke lending models.
Beyond origination, our Loan Services Suite offers middle-office support, handling loan onboarding, daily cash tracking, trade settlement, waterfall calculations, and portfolio reporting. It's a full-service solution for managing private credit portfolios.
A strong example is Apollo, which uses our Commercial Lending Suite to scale its asset-backed finance strategy across equipment leasing, auto loans, and even royalties, relying on our systems for structured cash flow management, covenant logic, and collateral waterfall support.
FIS delivers the tools private credit funds need to move fast, manage risk, and scale in today's evolving asset finance markets.
MB: What kinds of data integrations or analytics capabilities do you provide to help credit investors assess asset-backed risk and performance over time?
AG: In today's environment, especially when lending into emerging or volatile sectors, investors need more than just basic reporting, they want real-time, asset-level insight. That means full visibility into loan performance, covenant compliance, and increasingly, ESG alignment.
At FIS, we make that possible by integrating loan, contract, and asset data across our asset finance and supply chain finance platforms. This gives investors and fund managers a clear, consolidated view of their portfolios, right down to individual assets.
Our investor reporting tools, including PCS, VPM, and ISS, provide LP-grade transparency. That covers everything from IRR and waterfall modelling to covenant tracking and performance metrics. For hedge funds managing private credit loans, VPM can be paired with our middle-office outsourcing to ensure seamless reporting and operations.
Additionally, our analytics layer provides users with access to self-service dashboards and predictive tools, enabling them to identify early warning signals and manage risk proactively across their portfolio.
A great example is MetLife Investment Management. They're using private credit to support energy transition projects, things like solar leasing and EV infrastructure. Their strategy relies on tracking ESG performance, borrower alignment with net-zero goals, and impact reporting. Our platform gives them the tools to do just that, with ESG metrics fully integrated into origination and ongoing reporting.
In short, we help private credit managers turn data into clarity, so they can deliver accountability to investors and make smarter, faster decisions in a fast-changing market.
MB: How do your solutions accommodate the structuring flexibility often required in private credit deals — such as PIK interest, covenants, or tailored repayment schedules?
AG: Private credit deals rarely follow a one-size-fits-all structure. Whether it's PIK toggles, covenant waterfalls, or hybrid amortisation schedules, flexibility is the name of the game, and that's where FIS adds real value.
Our platforms are built to handle this complexity. We support fully customisable repayment structures, whether it's bullet, straight-line amortisation, or a hybrid of the two. Need to embed a PIK toggle or margin ratchet? Our systems can do that too, with logic built right into the origination and servicing workflows.
We also make covenant tracking easier and more transparent. From covenant thresholds to multi-layered waterfalls, our tools give you the flexibility to model bespoke terms — and the automation to monitor them without manual workarounds.
For deals involving multiple borrowers or SPVs, our credit assessment tools can consolidate financials and performance data across entities, so you're getting a true picture of risk and exposure at every level of the structure.
Firms like Paul Weiss have noted the growing demand for structures with PIK interest, covenant-light documentation, and drop-down protections. Our platform supports those exact needs through configurable facility templates and robust monitoring engines—making it easier for funds to design and manage these increasingly sophisticated deals.
Simply put, we help private credit managers build the deal they want, track it seamlessly, and scale without friction—no matter how bespoke the terms.
MB: In what ways does your platform support collaboration between private credit funds and traditional finance providers, such as co-lending or tranche-based structures?
AG: As banks face increasing capital constraints, many are shifting long-duration, capital-intensive assets off their balance sheets. That's opening up new opportunities for private credit funds to step in—through co-lending arrangements, forward flow agreements, and even synthetic risk transfers. At FIS, we're helping bridge that gap between traditional lenders and private credit capital.
Our tools like FIS SyndTrak and FIS LendAmend digitise key parts of the syndication process, from managing data rooms and investor communication to amendment voting and bookrunning. This makes it easier for private credit funds to collaborate with banks on shared transactions, with clear visibility into each step of the deal lifecycle.
We also offer tranche-level tracking, so funds and banks can manage their positions with clarity, monitoring exposure, waterfall distributions, and investor allocations across senior and mezzanine tranches in real time.
On top of that, our platforms support forward flow and synthetic risk transfer (SRT) structures, which are increasingly popular for risk-sharing between banks, insurers, and credit funds. These tools enable efficient capital deployment without burdening balance sheets, while still delivering the long-duration returns investors want.
A great example is how FIS Supply Chain Finance (formerly Demica, recently acquired by FIS) is supporting TreviPay's global expansion.
The deal used a hybrid structure combining securitisation and invoice discounting, all executed through our Supply Chain Finance platform. That setup allowed both banks and private credit funds to participate in funding, each taking on a role that matched their risk profile and capital strategy.
In short, we're not just supporting private credit, we're helping build the infrastructure that connects it to the broader financial system, creating more ways to fund growth collaboratively.
MB: How are you helping private credit participants meet operational and regulatory requirements — particularly around transparency, compliance, and reporting?
AG: As private credit becomes more mainstream, the regulatory spotlight is getting brighter — especially in the US and Europe. Funds are facing growing expectations around AML, KYC, ESG transparency, and investor disclosures. It's no longer just about deploying capital efficiently; it's also about proving you're doing it responsibly, with full compliance and transparency.
That's where FIS comes in. Our Investor Services Suite automates much of the heavy lifting around onboarding, AML/KYC checks, and tax compliance, covering FATCA, CRS, and more. This reduces operational burden while ensuring every step is audit-ready.
We've also embedded ESG metrics directly into the origination workflow, so funds can track KPIs tied to environmental or social outcomes from the very start of a deal. That makes it easier to report against frameworks like SFDR or TCFD without scrambling for data later.
When it comes to investor and regulatory reporting, our platform can generate NAV packs, investor statements, and disclosure-ready documents on demand, whether it's for periodic reviews, audits, or ad hoc investor requests.
Take MetLife Investment Management (MIM) as an example. Their transition finance strategy focuses on ESG-aligned lending, with impact reporting built in. Their framework, recognised by Environmental Finance, relies on the kind of borrower-level ESG tracking and regulatory reporting our solutions are designed to support.
In today's environment, demonstrating compliance, transparency, and impact isn't optional. FIS gives private credit funds the infrastructure to do it all—efficiently, accurately, and at scale.
MB: As private credit continues to scale in asset finance, what future innovations or capabilities are you building to support next-generation lending models?
AG: Private credit is evolving fast. As the market shifts toward digital origination, deeper ecosystem partnerships, and financing the global energy transition, private credit funds need platforms that can keep pace — and that's exactly where our roadmap is focused.
At FIS, we're building a unified, API-first asset-based lending platform that brings together asset finance, supply chain finance, and fund administration into a single, modular stack. That means funds can originate, structure, and manage deals more efficiently, no matter how complex or cross-border the transaction may be.
We're also developing digital loan passports, essentially tokenised loan identities that make it easier to track ownership, enable secondary trading, and give LPs greater transparency into individual exposures. This is a game-changer for funds looking to scale or bring more liquidity into their portfolios.
On the energy front, we're supporting financing for electrified transport, solar infrastructure, and ESG-aligned asset-backed lending. As BloombergNEF has highlighted, the world needs $4.8 trillion annually in energy transition investment by 2030, and private credit will be a big part of that. Our platforms are already being used to support EV fleet financing, solar leasing, and grid upgrades, helping funds underwrite real assets with long-term impact.
We've also digitised the processing of Loan Agent notices using AI , which is especially valuable in private credit, where formats vary and reporting can be unstructured. This reduces operational friction and improves accuracy across syndicated and bilateral deals.
In short, we're not just reacting to where private credit is going, we're helping to shape its future. Whether it's through digital origination, ESG-aligned lending, or next-gen reporting tools, FIS is committed to equipping private credit funds with the infrastructure they need to grow and lead in a changing world.
"Private credit's growing role in asset finance: a conversation with FIS" was originally created and published by Leasing Life, a GlobalData owned brand.
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