Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has launched ICE Private Credit Intelligence, a new service designed to inject much-needed transparency, standardized data and clearer information into the rapidly expanding private credit market. Investment giant Apollo is backing the initiative as an anchor partner, with ICE anticipating onboarding additional originators, asset managers, and capital markets participants in the coming months.
The private credit market has exploded to an estimated $40 trillion over the last decade. This growth growth has been driven by regulatory changes, increased appetite from large corporate borrowers, and a surging global demand for long-duration capital. However, as private and public markets converge, the data infrastructure supporting this asset class has lagged, creating a significant challenge for investors seeking clear and consistent information.
ICE Private Credit Intelligence aims to solve this critical gap by establishing a data infrastructure layer consistent with the experience of public credit markets. Key features of the new platform include:
- Secure, Permissioned Data Sharing: Utilizing a standardized reference data set, the service enables the secure flow of deal-level information with authorized counterparties. This is done without broadly exposing proprietary data.
- Scalable Distribution: The platform leverages ICE’s robust technology stack for scalable data distribution and extraction. It can ingest deal documents, extract key terms and data points, and distribute secured, consistent information at scale.
- Expanded Capabilities: Future enhancements are planned to include performance analytics and pricing insights, which will further improve portfolio management, risk assessment, and market transparency.
Apollo has been expanding its footprint in the private credit space by launching a dedicated secondary trading effort last year, which has facilitated nearly $10 billion in trading volume. The firm is also transitioning to more frequent pricing reporting across its credit business as private credit becomes a core fixed income allocation in investor portfolios. ICE is already providing fixed income evaluations on approximately three million instruments and reference data across global markets, with $2 trillion in assets under management benchmarked to its indices.
“Since ICE was founded over 25 years ago, we have been using sophisticated technology to modernize markets and offer innovative new services to our customers,” said Chris Edmonds, President of ICE Fixed Income and Data Services. “By bringing our vast data science expertise, and working with a leading firm like Apollo, we’re excited to launch a new service that will solve crucial challenges in the private credit market.”
Eric Needleman, Partner and Head of Apollo Capital Solutions, emphasized the importance of the project for the market’s next phase. “As private credit continues to scale, the next phase of the market’s evolution will require stronger infrastructure and more standardized data that enables market participants to own and transact in private credit in a way that mirrors the public credit experience,” he stated. Needleman called the collaboration a vital step toward improving transparency and enabling more efficient market activity.