Global debt tops record $365 trillion after $10 trillion first-half rise, IIF says

The IIF's figure matters less as a headline than as a composition story: emerging markets, not the developed world, supplied the marginal borrowing, which shifts where refinancing and currency risk sit. That distinction is what determines whether record leverage behaves as a slow-burn fiscal issue or a faster-moving funding problem. The open question is whether EM issuance continues to outpace developed-market supply, and whether the first-half pace holds through the rest of the year.