The trends and prospects of leasing development as a relevant financial tool of investments in the southern regions of Russia

Leasing owing to the unique economic essence is considered to be a booster for economic, innovation and investment business activity of any level. In the conditions of competition, economic subjects are constantly in search of innovative approaches to business operations and effective distribution of financial resources. This determines the demand for leasing as an efficient way to make investments into business.The relevance of the research regarding prospects of leasing development at the regional level does not raise doubts as the issue of sources of new investments into the real sector of Russian economy is particularly urgent today. Consequently, one of the ways to solve this issue is to apply new financial instruments of production, investment leasing in particular. In modern Russian economy the real investments can be raised by means of leasing which are quite necessaryfor modernization of fixed assets in various branches, including those in the most vulnerable links of the Russian economy.This paper presents the results of analyzing a tendency and features of leasing market development on the national and regional levels. The authors have given an assessment of investment climate in the Southern regions and systemized the factors on the basis of which both the general risks and the specific regional risks are marked out.As a result of assessing the experience of leasing functioning, some regional features have been revealed, drivers and development prospects of the leasing mechanism in the southern regions hev been defined. Furthermore, the positive approaches which should be put into practice have been revealed. Some points of growth ahave been defined in various segments of business based on the influencing support factors. As examples of growth drivers we can consider auto leasing, leasingofagricultural machinery, operatingleasing, leasing for individualsanda financialsupermarket.On the basis of generalization of possible ways that we can use to develop the regional leasing market there are directions to improve the realization of leasing mechanism on the regional level which can be used in practice.