T he article considers the opportunities, risks, and challenges associated with the development of digital financial technologies. To identify them, we used the scenario approach. We determined three main development scenarios for the market of innovative financial technologies-"domination of traditional financial companies", "segmentation of market of new financial technologies' , and "domination of digital financial companies" in terms of their probability and possible consequences for the global financial markets. The results of analysis allowed us to suggest that among main scenarios of fintech development the most probable is the splitting of existing market, which in the future can turn into a market of digital transnational financial corporations, which will squeeze out both small companies and traditional financial giants. However, although the scenario of capturing the financial market by large players is currently unlikely, it is certainly more important in terms of the consequences for global markets. The main prerequisite for the latter scenario is the promotion of international cooperation in the regulation of digital financial companies. Such a condition requires new models of country-level interaction in the regulation of innovative financial companies in order to address the risks and challenges of different scenarios of fintech development on global financial markets. This article includes a comparative analysis of digital development in Russia and the Republic of Korea, which is one of the key players on the Asian fintech market, as a possible benchmark that can be used to shape the policies of intergovernmental cooperation on global financial markets. These policies include 1) regulatory cooperation that reduces risks due to growing experience in the regulation of innovative financial companies; 2)cooperation in investments that allow one to acquire additional experience in regulatory practices and to develop infrastructure, which meets the new requirements of digital finance; and 3) cooperation in the taxation of fintech companies that reduces cross-border regulatory arbitrage.

(Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation) pension reforms in counTries wiTh DevelopeD anD TransiTional economies

In 2014, the United States, the European Union (EU) countries and some other states have imposed economic sanctions against Russia. The overcoming of sanctions requires an understanding of their effectiveness. Thus, we aimed to identify factors of the effectiveness of economic sanctions by reviewing the literature that considers sanctions as a tool for transforming the current national policies. The applied methodology of the systematic literature review (SLR) includes the following stages: 1) determining a basic sample of publications based on a keyword search in Web of Science, Scopus, Russian Science Citation Index, SSRN, EBSCO, Ideas/RePec, Google Scholar, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, De Gruyter JSTOR, Springer, Taylor & Francis; 2) identifying a representative sample based on the authors’ criteria (type of publication, language, character, content and context); 3) synthesising the representative sample; 4) reporting the research results. A method of comparative and graphical analysis was used to present the findings. The analysis of relevant literature allowed us to conclude that economic sanctions are more effective if 1) sanction costs for a target country are higher than for a sender, including those occurring as a result of regional inequality; 2) sanctions are designed as a short-term measure; 3) sanctions are multilateral and imposed by international institutes, including through regional trade agreements; 4) sanctions are targeted at democratic regimes. Moreover, the most preferred type of sanction — targeted (smart) sanctions — are less effective in achieving their goals than traditional comprehensive ones. Further review studies may focus on targeted economic sanctions (first and foremost in Russia) and include publications, analysing case studies of individual countries and industries.

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Starting from 2014 the European Union countries, the United States of America and some other states im- posed economic sanctions against Russia, resulting in diversification of trade ties away from western part- ners (“pivot to the East” strategy). The mixed findings of recent sanctions literature related to their effective- ness and measures to overcome the negative consequences, has necessitated the examination of these issues for the case of anti-Russian economic sanctions. We use various macroeconomic data along with indicators of digital development and financial inclusion. The methodology comprises a combination of graphical, com- parative, and correlation analysis. The analysis of external sector data shows that economic sanctions had substantial negative impact on trade and foreign direct investment with main senders. At the same time, the “pivot to the East” after 2014 has not been implemented yet as much as expected. To overcome negative im- pact of sanctions and to promote economic growth, the current diversification of ties should be accompanied by other measures, centred on digital development, digital financial technologies, and financial inclusion. We assess linkages between digital development and wealth inequality and we found that in most countries with moderate wealth inequality, including Russia, the digital transformation could bring more benefits in terms of economic growth, than in countries with lower wealth inequality. The overall study allowed us to examine digital policy implications to overcome the negative effects of sanctions in Russia. The obtained results will contribute to addressing the problem of optimisation of Russia’s behaviour as a target country that is the subject of future research.