The modern corporate financial landscape is characterized by an ever-increasing complexity of financial instruments and structuring. A central, yet often opaque, feature of this landscape is off-balance sheet financing (OBSF). This paper develops a conceptual model to explicate the tripartite relationship between OBSF, financial transparency, and corporate risk. We argue that OBSF, while sometimes employed for legitimate business purposes, fundamentally creates a "shadow economy" of corporate obligations that obscures the true economic substance of a firm's financial position. This obfuscation, in turn, systematically distorts key risk metrics, misleads stakeholders, and elevates both firm-specific and systemic risk. The model traces the pathway from the drivers of OBSF—including regulatory arbitrage, managerial opportunism, and market pressure—through the mechanisms of transparency impairment, culminating in the mispricing of risk. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for standard-setters, regulators, investors, and future research, emphasizing that the persistent evolution of OBSF techniques represents a continuous challenge to the foundational principles of financial reporting and corporate governance.