Last modified: 2020-02-27
Abstract
The number of the credit institutions on an international scale is oversized. At the same time, the world economy is developing at a relatively low pace. The existing downward tendency concerning the bank profits causes a significant cost pressure increase for a partial compensation. At least to some extent, the efforts of the financial sector are already shifted to not developing new business models, introducing innovative products and improving customer services, but rather to covering comprehensive regulatory requirements. The market entry of the so-called fintech firms, which are characterized by innovative activities and the adoption of typical bank functions such as payments, lead to overall market share loss by banks.
The consolidation of the banking sector is not only object of this paper, but also a promising solution to some of the current banking problems. Its subject is focused on the meaning as well as on the structure of the banking industry as a starting point of the consolidation process. The main tasks of the current survey are 1) the importance of the banking and 2) its structure in the European Union (EU) and Bulgaria in particular.
The methodology used is based on a comparative analysis of the importance and structure of the banking sector. The survey covers
- countries with the most and also low developed banking spheres according to the size of credit institutions.
- analysis of the average indicators for the EU including their comparison with the values in Bulgaria.