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The head of the International Monetary Fund has admitted that worrying about the risks building up in non-bank lending markets keeps her awake at night.

Kristalina Georgieva on Thursday urged countries to pay more attention to the private credit market, after the failure of sub-prime auto lender Tricolor and the car parts supplier First Brands.

Speaking at the IMF’s annual meeting in Washington DC, Georgieva said the fund was concerned about the “very significant shift of financing” from the banking sector to non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs).

Those NBFIs are not regulated as closely as the banking sector, she pointed out, meaning the world could end up in “a difficult place” if the private credit sector continues to grow significantly and the global economy then weakens.

“This is why we are urging more attention to the non-bank financial institutions,” Georgieva told reporters, suggesting there should be more oversight of the sector. “You are asking the question that keeps me awake every so often at night.”

First Brands and Tricolor had both been backed by private credit within the so-called shadow banking sector, which is not directly regulated and is not forced to disclose the level of risks on their books.

On Tuesday, the head of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, warned that more “cockroaches” could emerge from the private credit industry.

“My antenna goes up when things like that happen. I probably shouldn’t say this but when you see one cockroach, there’s probably more. And so everyone should be forewarned at this point,” Dimon said.

Georgieva says the IMF is being “very watchful”, but argues that “so far, not that many cockroaches” have been spotted.

She said she was encouraged that countries across the globe have better policy frameworks than were in place before the global financial crisis of 2008, while “systemically significant economies” have accumulated massive reserves to cope with problems.

But, she cautioned that many countries have exhausted their fiscal buffers, meaning they have little budget headroom to handle a financial crisis, while central banks are still battling inflation, and urged vigilance over the non-bank sector.

“In this environment, of course, the security blanket is covering us, but maybe we have a foot out in the cold. We have to be vigilant. What do we do? We watch it very carefully,” Georgieva said.

She also cited the “stretched valuations” in the stock market as a concern, in the event that the enthusiasm about AI doesn’t pay off, or its benefits take too long to arrive.

Back in June, BlackRock predicted that the private credit sector’s assets under management would grow to $4.5tn by 2030, up from an estimated $3tn today.

BlackRock’s Amanda Lynam and Dominique Bly argued that there is an “expanding addressable market” of both investors and borrowers for private credit. “Indeed, private credit has evolved from an asset class that was best placed to accommodate niche financing solutions, or lending to smaller, middle-market borrowers, to a sizeable, scalable, stand-alone asset class,” they added.

Earlier this week, the IMF warned that the growing exposure to NBFIs is generating concentration risk among some banks in the US and Europe.

The fund is concerned that banks are increasingly lending to private credit funds because these loans often deliver higher returns on equity than traditional commercial and industrial lending, thanks to the lower capital requirements allowed by their collateral structure.

It also warned US stock markets – which have rallied during the AI boom – are at risk of a “sudden, sharp correction” while government bond markets are under mounting pressure.

It was Sue Rizzello’s husband who persuaded her to see a doctor, concerned about the bloating in her abdomen that was making her more and more uncomfortable. Rizzello, then in her late 40s, had assumed it was menopausal weight gain, but agreed to go to her GP. “A smart locum said, ‘There’s something wrong here’, and sent me for a blood test … And that saved my life.”

It was the worst news: Rizzello had stage 3 ovarian cancer that had begun to spread. She would need to begin chemotherapy immediately and prepare for the complete removal of her uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and omentum, a procedure that would put her into immediate menopause.

It was the summer of 2012 and her husband, a chef, was working at one of the Olympic venues in Windsor, near to their then home in Slough. For Rizzello, however, “that whole summer was a blur” of painful treatment, including a clinical trial that was so tough, she was told, that many others had been unable to see it through.

Six months later, the marketing consultant was told her cancer had gone. “But I was never the same. It was massive. It was an earth-shaking experience that really shook my confidence to the core.”

Rizzello, now 60, was lucky, but she does not believe her cancer was just “one of those things” – she believes it was caused by talc.

She is one of about 3,000 British-based people – overwhelmingly women – who on Thursday brought a landmark legal action in the high court in London against the pharmaceuticals company Johnson & Johnson, claiming they or a family member contracted cancer after a lifetime using J&J’s baby powder.

Backed by a specialist law firm, the claimants argue that the US-based multinational knew for decades that its talc products might contain dangerous asbestos but failed to warn consumers and carried on selling the products in the UK until 2023.

J&J denies the allegations. A spokesperson for Kenvue, J&J’s former consumer health division that was spun off two years ago, said the talc used in baby powder complied with regulations, did not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.

Rizzello says she was in the dark about the origin of her disease, after genetic tests showed she did not carry the BRCA genes that significantly increase the risk of ovarian cancer. “And then I found out about the talc claims, and I thought, hang on.”

“I’ve used talc all my life. I mean, when I was a child, everybody did,” she says, whether after swimming or after a bath. “It was just always there. It was just always something you use.

“I’m totally convinced this was the cause of my own illness, and all the nightmare of treatment and trials that followed.”

J&J has been the subject of long-running lawsuits in the US over similar allegations of cancer links to talc, which it wholly disputes. Two years ago it spun off its consumer health division as Kenvue, which has responsibility for talc-related claims outside the US and Canada.

Kenvue said: “We sympathise deeply with people living with cancer. We understand that they and their families want answers – that’s why the facts are so important.

“The high-quality cosmetic-grade talc that was used in Johnson’s Baby Powder was compliant with any required regulatory standards, did not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.”

Two years ago, to mark the 10-year anniversary of being given the all clear, Rizzello asked friends to sponsor her to shave her hair again to raise money for cancer charities, in memory of others with the disease who did not survive. “I felt I really had to do something,” she says. “Many of the women I’ve met along the way had died, and so I always feel like it’s for them as much as it is for me.

“I value some things much more highly than I did before. I think I’ve always dreaded the idea of getting older. I don’t mind getting older now, and I’m so grateful to have a chance to get older.”