SOME APPROACHES TO ASSESSING THE AVAILABILITY OF BANKING SERVICES AND ITS IMPACT ON FINANCIAL STABILITY OF THE BANKING SECTOR
The article studies the necessity and importance of ensuring the availability of ﬁ nancial services, particularly the availability of credit services as the most common bank services. The authors examine the existing approaches to the concept of ﬁ nancial availability and conduct a calculation of individual indicators that characterize the degree of ﬁ nancial availability of banking services for the period 2012-2016 using the methodology of the Bank of Russia. Having analyzed the dynamics of the banking sector performance indicators in Russia for the period under study the authors identify the development tendencies and examine the availability of infrastructure for the provision of bank-ing credit services. The article reveals uneven accessibility of these services for different regions and client groups. The authors study the demand for bank credit services in 2012-2016 through assessing the availability of these services per 100,000 adults and conclude that currently there is a growing demand for credit services accompanied by decreasing availability of consumer credit services. The resulting discrepancy is compensated by growing remote banking services which, according to the authors, creates additional risks and adversely affects ﬁ nancial stability o the banking sector. A balanced approach to assessing ﬁ nancial accessibility while taking into account risks and maintaining ﬁ nancial stability of the banking sector is proposed; two groups of ﬁ nancial accessibility indicators are identiﬁ ed. The ﬁ rst group of indicators is designed to evaluate offers of credit services by banks and limit systemic risks. The second group of indicators is designed to determine demand for credit services taking into account real ﬁ nancial needs of consumers.