There's something fascinating happening in finance right now. The phrase "shadow banking" has basically vanished from mainstream conversation, yet the industry itself? It's absolutely exploded in size. What's even more interesting is how deeply embedded these operations have become within the traditional regulated banking framework.

You'd think as the sector grew larger, we'd talk about it more. Instead, it's like everyone agreed to stop mentioning the elephant in the room while it keeps getting bigger. The integration with conventional banking institutions has reached a point where the lines are increasingly blurred – these aren't parallel systems anymore, they're intertwined.

Makes you wonder what changed. Did the terminology become politically inconvenient? Or did the mainstream financial establishment just get better at absorbing these alternative structures without drawing attention to them?