Oleksii Muravskyi

The paper aims to assess the influence of bank lending on the performance of enterprises in the real sector. The relevance of the study for different countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, is shown. Structural equation modeling of the impact of bank lending on the performance of enterprises in the real sector is carried out using Ukraine as an example. Six key indicators of real sector enterprises’ performance for the period of 2007–2019 were selected as an information basis of the study. To assess the abovementioned impact, structural equation modeling was used, i.e., the Statistica program was selected as a software tool to evaluate the resulting model’s adequacy and determine the level of statistical significance of its parameters. The obtained results prove that the business lending sector in Ukraine has significant potential for its development, which ultimately will have a positive effect on the efficiency of the real sector enterprises. Moreover, adopting a balanced state policy in the sector of corporate bank lending can give impetus to the development of the domestic sector of real production and help Ukrainian enterprises overcome the crisis caused by COVID-19.

The emergence of new players – fintech companies, neobanks and non-banking companies – changes the structure of competition in the banking sector, reduces the profitability of traditional banking activities, and therefore forces banks to look for new sources of income. The paper deals with the issue of improving relations with clients in the banking sector of Ukraine, which is proposed to be implemented through the development of priority digital banking products and services. The study used a survey method using a statistical apparatus of a small unique sample, the degree of representativeness of which was assessed using the Student’s test. Slightly higher, closer to the level that characterizes the significant impact on the client’s perception of the whole complex of digital activities in the case of Polish banks (3.81, with a maximum possible score of 5.0) than Ukrainian banks (3.75), which indicates greater involvement and willingness to accept the digitalization of the people of Poland. Generally, banks in both countries are recommended to use a customer-oriented approach in forming product policy using digital products and services, which should be implemented and developed in practice in specific areas identified during customer surveys.