Shadow Banking
a.k.a. Shadow banks, Non-bank financial intermediation
Lending and credit activities carried out by institutions that aren't regulated as banks, such as funds and finance companies.
Shadow banking means bank-like activities, lending, borrowing short to lend long, creating credit, done by firms that are not banks: money market funds, hedge funds, private credit funds, finance companies and so on. They are not necessarily shady; "shadow" just means they operate outside traditional bank regulation and safety nets.
The risk is that they can suffer bank-style runs without a central bank automatically standing behind them. Much of the 2008 crisis spread through shadow banking, and regulators keep a nervous eye on it, especially in China and in private credit.
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