Irina Tretyakova’s research while affiliated with South-West State University and other places

The functioning of the banking sector of the economy in the world is characterized by a decrease in its capital intensity due to a decrease in the concentration of foreign capital, a deterioration in the quality of the loan portfolio, an outflow of urgent deposit resources and the receipt of significant losses by banking institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking into account the current trends in the spread of the virus, the development and implementation of fundamentally new approaches to anti-crisis management in the banking sector of both the world economy and Russia is of great importance today. The COVID-19 pandemic came as a big shock to the global and European economies. While banks are not hit by the pandemic as directly as other retail institutions, they are in the public eye as they provide funding to corporations and individuals. Their stability is crucial for maintaining the efficiency of the entire economic system, not only of a particular country, but also of the world. Currently, the need for a comprehensive study of the competitiveness of a commercial bank is determined by the objective modern conditions of the life of banks operating in a competitive environment. The article proposes the author’s methodology for assessing the competitiveness of a commercial bank, which includes five groups of indicators, which makes it possible to identify not only problematic, but also stable areas of activity. The proposed method for calculating the integral indicator for assessing the competitiveness of a commercial bank has been tested on the example of Russian Agricultural Bank and Sberbank, and a set of measures has been developed to increase the level of competitiveness of a commercial bank.

Retail lending due to a number of reasons holds a special place in the general system of credit relations and plays an important role in the modern free market economy. Being a dynamically developing segment of banking business, retail lending is considered as an important part of the entire system of credit relations within the framework of the present study. Our study has revealed that retail lending is treated ambiguously. In this connection, our article proposes the authors' approach to the definition of this phenomenon. Using general and special research methods, we have undertaken the comprehensive analysis of retail lending development as one of priority business areas of a commercial bank; there have been revealed the influence of international financial processes on the development of this segment and defined the main aspects of its development in Russia. Monitoring of retail lending market and the use of forecasting techniques has allowed us to specify the future directions of its formation and to form a complex of strategic measures to enhance its impact on the Russian economy.