Current trends in the development of financial intermediary in the context of military challenges: the Ukrainian case
Authors: Kravchuk Nataliya , Lutsyshyn Oleh 
Published: July 2023

Introduction. The current situation on the financial market of Ukraine, in the conditions of military challenges, depends not only on financial and economic factors, but also on social, political and security factors. The war defines non-typical rules for the functioning of both financial intermediaries and the financial market in general. Safety of all participants and creation of conditions for access to financial services in conditions of fragility of the financial intermediation system became the main dominant factors. And this, in turn, requires the rapid reorientation of financial intermediaries to remote communication channels, digitization of services, flexible policy in the field of regulation, the search for new alternative sources of replenishment of resources, ensuring financial stability and liquidity, the search for new tools, quick response to challenges related to with wartime activities. All of the above causes considerable pressure on the functioning of financial intermediaries, who are responsible for their financial stability.
Goal. Elucidation of the main factors affecting the state of the financial market in the conditions of military challenges; analysis of the real state of financial intermediaries and generalization of factors and reasons for the reduction of market activity and the fragility of systems and financial intermediation; justification of the need to change the policy of prudential supervision; identification of the potential and channels for the introduction of financial innovations to improve the market; outline of the main trends in the development of financial intermediaries in the post-war period.
Results. It was found that financial intermediaries in Ukraine work during the period of "shock" challenges caused by wartime. It is shown that their activities are aimed at introducing financial innovations and ensuring stable access of consumers to all financial services. The pragmatism of the functioning of financial intermediaries in the financial services market, their real state, the problems of activity and state regulation are revealed, the challenges faced by financial market participants in the wartime period are emphasized. It is argued that in the conditions of the fragility of the financial intermediation system, ensuring the sustainability and stability of the activity of financial intermediaries, their effective activity, openness and transparency has an important place. The importance of inclusiveness in the activities of financial intermediaries has been demonstrated. It is proven that military challenges became a systemic determinant of the "cleansing" of the financial market, forcing a part of financial intermediaries (usually from the market of non-banking financial institutions) to make a difficult but responsible decision - to leave the market. Under such circumstances, it is important for the state regulator to take preventive measures aimed at supporting this sector of the financial market. Another challenge is operating in conditions of total economic decline and lack of financial resources to fulfill the obligations assumed. Financial intermediaries are ready to make concessions and soften the terms of obligations, however, there should be counter-steps in the system of regulatory policy to create soft rules and requirements in war conditions (reducing the level of provisioning for overdue loans, canceling the norm of the ratio of productive and non-productive assets, the level of profitability and softening of other activity indicators for the period of the war and the determination of a specific and adequate period of recovery in the post-war period).
Conclusions. Based on the results of the conducted research, the following conclusions were drawn: new trends are crystallizing in the financial market of Ukraine and in the system of financial intermediation; the issues of introducing technologies for remote and asynchronous access to services provided by financial intermediaries into the activities of financial intermediaries are updated; military challenges cause serious changes in the configuration of the financial market, both in terms of the segmentation of financial intermediaries, and in terms of the introduction of innovations in the financial intermediation system.