The authors reveal fundamental tendencies of banks financial intermediation especially in the sphere of shadow banking and off-balance writes-off. Substantial transformations of financial system structure caused by liberalization of financial legislation, invention of brand new financial instruments and special risk-transferring schemes (special purpose entities via special investment vehicles) and the gradual process of banking universalization specifically the approximation of business models conducted by traditional commercial and investment banks created grounds for the review of current approaches to financial systems classification. The objective of the study is to identify operative patterns and specifics of financial systems in the context of global structural transformations of business models in the bank sector. Methodology. The methodological basis of the study is formed by theoretical works of foreign and domestic experts on issues related with financial systems worldwide, and the statistical data on the operation of banks in various countries, normative documents of prominent international economic institutions. The general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, abstraction, quantitative and qualitative comparisons, descriptive analysis, analysis of the current performance of the financial system are used in elaborating theoretical and methodological framework for the typology of national financial systems by position and role played by banks in the financial system. Results. The central objective of the financial system is to transfer temporarily free financial resources from its actors that have their surplus to the ones that feel the deficit of funds. National financial systems can, therefore, be classified by the way domestic companies raise funds they need.