Banking services in terms of changing environment: the case of Macedonia

The aim of this paper is to elaborate the impact of the changing environment on the services that the banking sector is providing. The trends in the international banking will be analyzed also from the perspective of the banking activities on Macedonian banks. Speaking of changes, there are two tendencies that can be determined in the international banking: 1) increased competition that influence on the banking products and pricing, 2) technology improvements that affects the distribution channels of selling and the operating cost on the banking activities. Increased competition and sharing the same target market along with other financial institutions affects the banks' market share and prices of their products. In developed economies there is a trend of suppression of banks from certain market segments and reducing their market share. This trend is mostly expressed in USA and is less pronounced in EU. Also rapid technology development and penetration of Internet in everyday life doesn’t leave immune nor the banking sector. The technological improvements affect the banking industry through introduction of new products, increasing efficiency in terms of operating costs and developing new distribution channels. Banks are forced to adapt their products to a new generation that is coming and who grew up in the Internet Age. The biggest changes have been made in terms of payment methods by allowing transactions to be made 24 hours a day from anywhere. The development of technology also affects on the improvement of data bases which enable better assessment of credit risk to individual products and customers. Banks along with other financial institutions are joining in collecting and sharing of customer data that enables better assessment of the credit risk.