Digital Ecosystems as a Way to Achieve Competitive Advantages in the Financial Market: System Analysis of the Problem

Purpose: of this article is to study the expanding practice of applying the ecosystem approach in the business life of organizations and the degree of its impact on future transformations of the economic system. The research focuses on the segment of digital ecosystems of the banking sector related to non-financial areas of economic activity.

Methods: when preparing the article, a wide range of research methods were used – the method of systems analysis, methods of modeling and comparative historical analysis, as well as logical and inductive methods.

Results: the banking sector is actively developing the process of creating digital ecosystems used by large financial institutions as a means of achieving additional competitive advantages, as well as a tool to expand the bank's client base. Of particular interest is the expanding practice of building up these ecosystems through non-financial business areas. The results of the study also suggest the emergence of other negative consequences that hinder the effective development of the economic system. Among them: the oligopolization process on financial markets, the emergence of additional barriers to these markets, as well as the formation of oligopolistic relations in segments of economic activity that previously belonged to highly competitive sectors of the economy.

Conclusions and Relevance: digitalization is an objective trend in the development of economic relations at the present stage, however, the uncontrolled application of the digital ecosystem approach in the practice of banking institutions carries risks of further consolidation of non-competitive relations in the most important sector of the domestic economy. The banking sector is additionally due to the involvement of non-core banking assets in ecosystems, influences the establishment of such relations in sectors of the economy traditionally related to highly competitive spheres of economic activity.

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