Banking security of Ukraine: current state and ways to improve

Ukrainian banking institutions conduct their activity under the influence of various risks, which create critical situations for them. In this context, banks should pay more attention to their own security. The article analyzes the theoretical approaches to the concept of “banking security”, examines the level of banking security as a component of the financial and economic security of the state, and determines the ways to improve it. Banking security was analyzed based on the data of the National Bank of Ukraine and other banks that are part of the banking system of the country.The current state of the banking system shows a decrease in the security since 2014 to the “danger zone”. This is facilitated by a great number of problem loans and foreign capital in the authorized capital of banks; the predominance of short-term lending over long-term one; continued unprofitableness and low liquidity of bank assets. Banking security was the guarantor of achieving financial security of the state. Therefore, the article outlines directions for improving the operation of banking institutions and the banking system as a whole, which will allow to improve banking security in the short term. This is, first of all, the legislative consolidation of the creditor rights protection, the expansion of the lending process, including in foreign currency, with the predomi-nance of long-term loans, the banks’ work in the direction of increasing their assets profitability, optimizing administrative costs, developing and using the latest informa¬tion technology to ensure the effective operation and information security of banks