The Path to the Sustainable Financial Inclusion in Ukraine: Analysis of the Current Issues

The article is devoted to the assessment of existing problems in the field of financial inclusion in Ukraine and the identification of prospects and mechanisms for their solution. Systematization and generalization of the existing developments by global regulators of financial services have shown that the issues analyzed in the article are inherent to some extent to other countries. The article carries out the study of the actual needs assessment of financial inclusion in Ukraine in the following logical order: determination of the main idea and directions of establishing sustainable financial inclusion, assessment of the financial services’ availability level, analysis of financial literacy and consumer protection of financial services, defining the role of the National Bank of Ukraine, measures, actions and normative and legislative framework for developing a program for increasing financial inclusion. The article features the methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison and generalization, analogy and clustering as well as graphical and tabular methods, the research covers the period from 2011 to 2017 inclusive. The research subject includes consumers and providers of financial services in Ukraine, since they determine the level and financial inclusion stability. The article presents the results of the empirical analysis of infrastructure development for the availability of non-cash payments by regions of Ukraine, risks of financial services consumers for the placement and use of their own and borrowed funds, issues related to the operating of non-bank financial institutions, as well as gaps in legislative protection of consumer rights. The analysis made it possible to identify problems and determine the prospects and directions for the actions of financial services regulators to ensure sustainable financial inclusion and the development of the financial sector of Ukraine for the near future. The study empirically confirms and theoretically proves that despite the fact that the level of financial inclusion in Ukraine corresponds to the world average on its indicators, at the same time it significantly lags behind the indicators of highly developed countries. The results of the study may prove to be useful to regulators and the State in general, as well as to providers and consumers of financial services.