Alyona Klochko

Banking institutions spend a lot of money and use various resources to ensure both their activities’ security and their customers’ security. States and international institutions make significant efforts in this regard. But, unfortunately, this cannot always completely protect bank or client from attackers (lawbreakers). This problem is not only of technical, economic and informational character, but also legal. The article deals with issues of ensuring the criminal law protection of banking in Ukraine. Current criminal legislation of Ukraine, and draft regulations as to the holding responsible for crimes in banking sector are analyzed. The proposals as to criminalization of actions dangerous for a society in the field of banking activity are put forward: illegal obtaining of a loan; willful evasion of satisfaction of accounts payable; improper execution of the bank deposit contract terms; abuse of authority in banking; fraud with bank electronic payments.

The European integration intentions of Ukraine have made changes to the development of its economy and in particular to the financial sphere. Substantially, these changes affected the banking system development, which is a systemic element of the financial and credit market. The essence of these changes manifests itself in the increase of foreign banks presence, the need to implement the EU banking legislation norms and methods of banking business in the domestic practice. All this determines the urgency of the effective development of economic and legal aspects of Ukraine's banking security in the European integration context. From there, the purpose of the article is to clarify the concept of banking security, its main components and levels of development. The report data of the Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) and the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine for the last years have been analyzed. It is concluded that the lack of unified reports on the criteria for criminal offenses in the sphere of banking provides a dubious picture of the definite level of these crimes. It also testifies about the lack of control and superficial attitude of the controlling bodies towards the processes of the banking sphere criminalization. It is determined that the DGF indicators do not correspond to those of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reports regarding the crimes committed in the sphere of banking. Lack of unified reports as well as the unified terminology and the classification envisaged at the legislative level of these socially dangerous actions complicates identifying the criminological indicators of the crimes in banking. Lack of practice in considering such categories of the cases and the corresponding resolutions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine also does not contribute to the fair court decisions on these matters.

In view of the expanding range of banking services in Ukraine, the issue of introducing innovative means of protecting consumers against illegal actions in the field of banking becomes relevant. This paper aims to determine the effectiveness of biometric technologies for customer identification during banking transactions, the legality of their use, and to identify areas for the development of state policy focused on the legal use of biometric data in order to protect the rights and legitimate interests of individuals and legal entities. Based on analysis and systematization of scientific publications and regulatory framework, it was found that a potential direction for banks to implement the customer focus concept in their services to establish the appropriate level of security is the use of biometric technologies that ensure the proper storage of personal data. The summarized information on the actual application of biometric identification methods in the banking sector allows stating that the factors stipulating the criminal offenses using biometric data can be neutralized by the subjects of counteracting such offenses and through effective legal remedies. Contradictions arising between the state of regulatory support and the actual needs for the use of biometric technologies in the field of banking in Ukraine decelerate the use of effective security tools with a high degree of reliability in the banking sector. It is concluded that further implementation of biometrics in the banking sector in Ukraine requires a comprehensive approach and consideration of the best world practices.

The need for state management of the land market is stipulated with the necessity for rational use of agricultural land and preservation of its fertility. This study aims to identify the risks that have arisen with opening the land market in Ukraine. Moreover, it develops effective measures to minimize such risks, designed to enforce the legal right of amalgamated territorial communities to acquire ownership of agricultural land. The comparative law method was used in a sample analysis of legal precedents on liability for offenses in land relations, as well as the regulations that establish liability for offenses in this field and certain provisions of the legal precedents of the European Court of Human Rights. Following the study, proposals were formulated intending to improve land management in favor of the decentralized model and enforce the legal rights of amalgamated territorial communities due to the opening of the land market in Ukraine. An innovative strategy is proposed for the functioning of land relations, aimed to improve the process of their regulation in the land market performance, and its components are outlined. Implementation of the proposed strategy for the functioning of land relations will improve the transfer mechanisms of agricultural land to the amalgamated territorial communities. It will also mitigate the identified risks in the land market performance in Ukraine.

An effective system for combating banking crimes can ensure the stability of the Ukrainian banking sector. Developing such a system requires an analysis of public policy institutional instruments to counter threats to the banking system stability. The article proposes the crime counteraction concept for the Ukrainian banking system based on the analysis of scientific articles dealing with the issue, relevant provisions of legal acts and on the study of functions of law enforcement agencies, individual executive bodies, central public authorities, state collegial bodies, territorial NBU departments, Ukrainian banks and their branches, the Deposit Guarantee Fund, international institutions, and bank clients.
It has been established that the stability of the Ukrainian banking system can be ensured by effective interaction of all actors in combating crime in the banking business. Overlapping of their functions and some conflict rules negatively affect ensuring the banking system stability by entities engaged in banking crime counteraction. Therefore, an algorithm of cooperation between relevant counteraction entities should be developed and reflected in the Banking and Financial Security Strategy on the legislative level. Optimization of statistical reporting on crime in the Ukrainian banking sector in a more informative format requires data on both individual types of banking crimes and on the persons who commit them. As part of the work of the National Bank of Ukraine’s Public Council, it is necessary to organize regional public councils and ensure cooperation between bank clients and local banking institutions. It is assumed that the development of effective mechanisms for protecting rights and legitimate interests of depositors and creditors, as well as combating criminalization in the banking sector will be the main functions of these regional public councils. The relevant innovations require amendments to the Regulation on the NBU Public Council.

Acknowledgment
The article was prepared as part of a project for young scientists of Ukraine in 2017 (state registration number – 0117 U 006531), Improving the Legislation of Ukraine Regarding the Protection of Banking Activities in the Context of European Integration: Economic and Legal Aspect, by Alyona M. Klochko, Ph.D. (Law), Sumy National Agrarian University, Head of the Chair of International Relations.

The relevance of the study is due to the abolishment of the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land and the risks arising from the land market opening in Ukraine. The paper aims to identify the effectiveness of land mortgages for the agricultural sector of the economy and determine the mechanisms of state policy aimed at legal groundwork to guarantee rights of landowners. The comparative analysis of the land market development in the Central European states contributed to identifying system-based state management of land market formation processes, which had a positive effect on the land reform outcomes in these states. The analysis results confirmed the timeliness of the land market opening in Ukraine, which is related to the chosen economic and political course. The investment attractiveness of the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex is due to high productivity of lands and is supported with the possibility of mortgaging agricultural land. Neutralization of factors hindering the foreign investment attracted to agricultural business will contribute to the attraction of efficient technologies and highly productive use of the agricultural land in Ukraine. Some measures aimed at the land relations transformation in Central Europe do not consider the peculiarities of the Ukrainian agricultural sector. In particular, it is not reasonable to sell agricultural land to foreigners. Assessment of certain provisions of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on the Conditions of Agricultural Land Transactions’ No. 552-IX shows the inevitability of abuse by foreign-owned banking institutions of the possibility to alienate the lands pledged under any loan agreements. Criminalization of evasion from the alienation of agricultural land as collateral will prevent the risks of acquiring Ukrainian agricultural lands by foreign-owned banking institutions. It is concluded that the banking system will only perform the functions of an investor in the agricultural sector of the economy, so there is a need to strengthen the state regulation of the land market in Ukraine.