Competitiveness in Banking Sector: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

THE AIMS OF THE PAPER
 The concept of bank competitiveness has attracted increasing scientific attention. The current paper explores the directions and trends of research on bank competitiveness measures by reviewing recently published journal articles.
 METHODOLOGY
 The research follows the systematic literature review method. First, a set of keywords were defined. Then, the keywords were combined with the Boolean operator “AND” to identify articles in the two biggest scientific databases: Web of Science and Scopus. The identified papers were filtered and screened following the PRISMA method of selection. At the final stage, 33 articles were included.
 MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS
 Based on the analysis of published papers, the author identified the main research streams within bank competitiveness:risk-stability, market power, macroeconomic context, information technology, and new applications. Also, within the context of growing digitalization, little attention is paid to the influence of information technology on bank competitiveness.
 RECOMMENDATIONS
 Within the context of the growing importance of technological innovations in the financial sector (e.g., financial technology startups), there is still a lack of research on the influence of technological innovations implemented by banks on their competitiveness. Also, considering that the existing methods of measuring competitiveness in banks often provide conflicting information, developing new ways of estimating competitiveness considering the level of digitalization is necessary.