FINTECH AS A FACTOR OF ASYMMETRIC TRANSFORMATION OF THE BANKING SECTOR: EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE AND POTENTIAL FOR UKRAINE

In the current conditions of digital transformation of the financial sector, FinTech is one of the key drivers of structural changes in banking. The COVID-19 pandemic, the full-scale war in Ukraine, and global digitalization processes have significantly accelerated the introduction of contactless payment technologies, mobile banking, and remote financial services. Special scientific attention is required to analyze the impact of FinTech on the banking systems of developing countries, which simultaneously strive to catch up with digital leaders and face institutional, economic, and infrastructural constraints. Ukraine, being in conditions of military instability, demonstrates unexpectedly high rates of digitalization of banking services, which actualizes the need for its scientific understanding in a comparative international context. The purpose of the study is to analyze the main trends in the development of financial technologies in the banking sector of different countries, in particular, to compare digital transformation in developed and developing countries, to identify success factors, development barriers, and the potential for integrating innovations into the banking sector. The study uses quantitative and comparative approaches. Statistical indicators characterizing access to financial services and the level of digitalization of banking activities are analyzed, in particular, the number of bank branches and ATMs, the volume of mobile and Internet banking transactions, the number of transactions per capita and the share of digital payments in GDP using the example of 11 European countries. Methods of comparative analysis, data visualization and interpretation of digital trends in dynamics are used. The results of the study indicate the presence of pronounced unevenness and asymmetry of the digital transformation of the banking sector under the influence of FinTech. In developed countries (Estonia, Poland, Turkey), FinTech is actually transforming into the dominant banking service channel, which is accompanied by a reduction in physical banking infrastructure, a rapid increase in the number of digital transactions and a high share of non-cash payments in GDP. In contrast, in developing countries (Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova), digital financial services are at the stage of formation and are developing in parallel with the physical banking infrastructure, which indicates the catching-up nature of digitalization and limited substitutability of traditional service channels. For Ukraine, despite the lack of complete statistical data in the sample, a specific model of forced digital transformation is characteristic, in which the reduction of physical banking infrastructure is combined with the intensive growth of remote banking services, in particular mobile banking and non-cash payments. This allows to attribute Ukraine to the group of countries with a high potential for accelerated FinTech integration, provided that the institutional and regulatory environment is stabilized. The value of the study lies in identifying and systematizing models of asymmetric FinTech transformation of the banking sector in European countries with different levels of economic development, which allows to explain the absence of a universal trajectory of digitalization. The practical significance of the results obtained lies in the possibility of using them to form strategies for the digital transformation of the banking sector, develop financial inclusion policies, and adapt best European FinTech practices for countries in catching up, in particular for Ukraine.