Formation of Bank’s Development Strategy Based on an Ecosystem Approach

The formation of financial ecosystems is at the forefront of a scientific debate regarding the future development of banking in the platform economy. The decline in banking margins, the exhaustion of growth resources due to territorial expansion, the demand for innovative products and advanced methods of acquisition, and the intensifying competition from fintech companies and digital services represent just a few of the challenges banks face as they adapt their development strategies to contemporary needs. An analysis of the fundamental principles of the ecosystem concept, in relation to technological evolution and the pace of its implementation in banking, indicates that a promising organizational and economic model for a modern bank is the ecosystem. The establishment of such an ecosystem can be viewed as a long-term development strategy for a bank. The systematization of the strategies for transforming the largest Russian banks – Sberbank, T-Bank, and VTB – into an ecosystem, along with an analysis of its advantages, disadvantages, and necessary conditions for implementation, formed the basis for concluding that the ecosystem strategy possesses a universal nature. This strategy can be applied to any bank, irrespective of its historical background, scale of operations, geographical location, or systemic significance. At the same time, the approaches of banks, even those belonging to the same cluster, for example, systemically important banks, to the implementation of the ecosystem strategy differ. Based on the results of the study, recommendations are given on the step-by-step formation of an ecosystem strategy, including the stages: emergence of a strategic idea; expansion of the boundaries of the bank’s cooperation with financial and non-financial services on the terms of a strategic partnership (open ecosystems) or affiliation (closed ecosystems); leadership establishment within the ecosystem; and long-term development of the ecosystem at maturity. Authors’ contribution. Yu.E. Kopchenko – substantiation of the methodology, development of the concept and compilation of the research algorithm, putting forward a hypothesis about the universal nature of the ecosystem strategy, generalization of research results and formulation of conclusions, and general scientific editing of the article; M.A. Magammedov – selection of scientific sources and content analysis of publications on the research topic, collection and analysis of empirical data, study of the processes of transformation of ecosystem bank strategies, and preparation of the article text.