Despite the increasing role of cross-border payments within the globalization processes and rapid growth of venture sector, an issue of its implementation remains to be a debatable point for many countries. The paper identifies disruptive challenges for financial institutions need to adapt. The research investigates the value and the investment flows structure as most obvious indicators of FinTech and describes types of payments relationships there. The paper considers relationships between enterprises, financial institutions and individuals, which are formed in digital payments. To understand the difference between regular cross-border money transfers and P2P cross-border money transfers with TransferWise, both mechanisms were researched and the benefits underlined. For Ukraine, the improvement of existing cross-border payments system with FinTech is a crucial challenge. That is why it is important to focus on providing knowledge for people, supporting start-ups in the sector and learning the best implementation practices. A great example of cross-border payments of FinTech in Ukraine is TransferWise. The difference between regular cross-border money transfers and peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfers appears in its benefits, such as lower and more expectable transfer fee, mid-market exchange rate, less transaction period. By transforming existing cost structures and mitigating market imperfections, they provide innovative services that meet the users’ needs for speed, trust, low cost, usability, security and transparency. The results show high potential of FinTech for cross-border payment processing.

The concept of learning cities and regions is recently becoming widespread both in the European and global theory of regional development acting as a tool for successful local socio-economic development management of a city and region, development of their human potential, the basis of the regional education policy of countries. Analysis of theoretical principles and, particularly, the practice of implementing the concept of learning cities and regions for Ukraine is currently a necessary condition for its sustainable development, full entry into the European and global economy, as well as the educational space. All mentioned above makes relevant the research of theory and practice of the European and world regional education policy on the example of learning cities and regions. The article analyzes the potential of the Composite Learning Index and European Lifelong Learning Index to monitor the progress of lifelong learning as a tool for local development management and proposes the list of indicators and measures – the Ukrainian Lifelong Learning Index – adapted to the Ukrainian education area.

What is a human capital? Many minds tried to find answer for this question. First attempts were made even during the ancient times. However, as it is mentioned in the early scientific literature, human capital as a determinant in labor economics appeared at the end of XX century. Until recently it is one of the most discussed questions in the field. Therefore, this work will present thoughts of many famous economists who have made any contribution into human capital. Moreover, there is a connection that goes through years and centuries showing the main points of dispute and compares it with points of current hot debates. It might help to understand current problems better, because we have to "explore the past to understand the present and shape the future" (Graseck, 2008).

To date, the promotion of local development of the territorial communities by means of the financial policy tools is one of the priority directions of scientific research not only in Ukraine, but also throughout the world. The article presents the results of the study of the impact of the participatory financing (attraction of the financial resources of community members, central and local budgets and the international donors) on the social capital of the territorial communities of Sumy region on the basis of the results of two phases of the project "Community-based Approach to Local Development", which has been implemented in Ukraine by the United Nations Development Program since 2007. The main purpose of the article is to confirm the hypothesis that the participatory financing contributes to the social mobilization of the community residents, which leads to the activation of the "dormant" potential of collective actions and the desire of people to help themselves, as well as to improve some indicators of social capital. The difference-in-differences method and the multivariate regression analysis were used for the study. According to the results of the study, the characteristics of social capital, such as (anti)paternalism, the presence of traditions in community, involvement in social activities, collective action and cooperation are the most affected by the impact of participatory financing.

One of the main conditions for improving the overall competitiveness of the country is the formation of its sustainable logistic potential, since logistics is responsible for promoting the country’s products, both in the domestic and foreign markets. This is also characteristic for agricultural companies of the main countries of agricultural production in the world, which need to manage their logistic business processes effectively. The business processes of logistics sphere include the processes of warehousing, transportation and further distribution of agricultural products between the entities of the agrarian market (warehousing, traders, wholesale and retail trade network, consumers) at the national, as well as international level. Internationalization of agricultural production includes the formation of cooperative industrial relations in the agrarian sphere between the countries in the chain of “production, processing and marketing”, and the management of business processes in the logistics sphere. The latter is characterized by the business process management of the warehousing, transport, distribution areas at the national and international levels and food safety, which represents increasing demand for food in many countries of the world. These are some of the main signs of sustainable logistic development at the national and international levels. A methodical approach to assessing the logistic potential of the main countries of agricultural production in the world is improved; this method is characterized by a set of competitive elements and includes the assessment of logistics management of countries by blocks: product safety, internationalization of production and logistics, management of business processes. The result of this improved method of assessing the logistic potential of the world countries is a developed criterial basis, which allows making effective managerial decisions at the interstate and state levels regarding the logistic development of agrarian productions.