Research background: The global banking network has been undergoing structural changes since the recent financial crisis. Previous studies on connectedness of global banking network during post-crisis period revealed the trends of regionalization and segmentation. Our previous research has also shown that during post-crisis period the level of regionalization within the EU banking network has increased; the network became more clustered and more decentralized. This paper continues our research of structural changes of EU banking network during post-crisis period by adding a global context and questioning the connectedness of EU banking network within global banking system. Purpose of the article: The aim of the paper is to evaluate the EU banking network’s connectedness in the global context during the post-crisis period. Methods: network analysis method and data on yearly flows of BIS bilateral interbank cross-border claim were used to evaluate the connectedness of global and EU banking systems. Findings & Value added: Evaluation of the global banking network’s connected-ness revealed that global banking network density decreased by 4.50 %, suggesting that connectedness is decreasing, but it is happening slowly. Structural changes in the global banking network did happen during post-crisis period with regards to out-degree, betweenness and closeness centrality indicators. In the global context, the EU banking network became more connected during post-crisis period. The EU banking network was regionalized in 2011, but this regionalization disappeared in 2015, as the level of intraregional density decreased in 2015 and became lower than the interregional density. This research contributes to previous research in a way that it applies intraregional and interregional network density measures for evaluation of the EU banking network’s connectedness, and analyses it as a subset of the global banking network.

Some aspects of re-globalization were already fragmentary analyzed empirically in globalization and regionalization related research after the global financial crisis. These empirical studies suggest that re-globalization in terms of structural financial network changes did not start recently, but appears to be observed since the global financial crisis and might have been further amplified by pandemic and geopolitical tensions. The subject of re-globalization remains under-explored in current academic research, where existing studies mostly focus on theoretical aspects of re-globalization scenarios. Among possible future scenarios of re-globalization, most likely are discussed to be geographical regionalization mosaic, ally-based bipolar regionalization, and continuing globalization. Our research aims to test empirically if geographical regionalization during the post global financial crisis period has increased, bipolar regionalization has happened, or if globalization is continuing as suggested by re-globalization megatrend. Using dataset of investment flows among 234 countries during the period 2009–2020 we map 5-layer multiplex financial network and find that network appears to be already highly regionalized geographically, also globalization seems to be increasing, thus, regionalization and globalization appear to be not contradictory and mutually exclusive processes. Geographical regionalization did not increase in terms of shifting inter-regional investment to intra-regional territory. The world appears to have become bipolarly ally-regionalized with 2 main communities – US and Europe vs. China dominated blocs. However, Europe's role remains ambiguous, because not all of Europe is clustered with US, but rather its Eastern and Northern regions, while Western Europe clusters with China. Hence, the results of this research suggest friend-shoring rather than nearshoring.

Research background: International capital flows show decreasing trend after each financial crisis as countries become unwilling to invest in risky counterparties. Recent discussions over structural changes within the global financial network suggest that its structure may be still undergoing some changes. Uncovered weaknesses of over-connectedness with unstable un-ally countries during global financial crisis were further highlighted by recent Covid-19 pandemic. However, previous research suggest that important structural changes happened after global financial crisis. Thus, such situation raises a question whether post global financial crisis multiplex network structure is long-term and is it exhibiting re-globalization pattern as suggested by re-globalization megatrend. Purpose of the article: The main objective of the paper is to assess post global financial crisis multiplex financial network structure longevity and to identify whether it exhibits re-globalization pattern. Methods: Multiplex financial network mapping, network topological analysis and structure longevity methods were employed to evaluate network connectedness, topological structural properties of multiplex financial network and its’ structure longevity. 5-layer multiplex financial network was mapped for different types of capital flows for each layer: net direct and portfolio investments in debt, equity and net banking assets for each year in the post global financial crisis period 2009–2020. Each network layer employed bilateral data from up to 234 countries of the world. Next step of research employed a set of network-level measures defining topological features of each network in the period of 2009–2020 in order to capture the trend of structural changes and evidence of re-globalization. The final stage analyzes multiplex financial network structure by layer and country longevity. Findings & value added: Analysis reveals that stock (positions) multiplex financial network aggregate connectedness, i.e., density and value, increased during post- global financial crisis period until Covid-19 pandemic period, thus, suggesting that globalization in terms of stock is continuing. Topological structural properties of multiplex financial network changed as number of strongly and weakly connected countries decreased and more countries became included in network. Longevity analysis of layer and country structure within multiplex financial network reveal that banking and debt investments are increasing since 2018, while equity part is decreasing. Developed countries, i.e., the United Kingdom and Germany, decrease in multiplex financial network structure, while developing, especially from Asia region (i.e., Hong Kong SAR, China and Singapore) increase. Such empirical results support the re-globalization megatrend in terms of investment type and counterparty structure as highlighted by most recent scientific discussion showing that it started early after global financial crisis. Research also uncovers some regional trends of Asia region increasing in investment network structure, while Europe decreasing. As developing countries attract more and more investment and further develop, global cost saving and, thus, returns from global investment into these countries may be decreasing, resulting in lower gain from globalization. Our analysis may facilitate investment strategy decisions by suggesting that even though gains from globalization might be decreasing, instead of localization, countries could follow ally investment strategy to manage the risk of over-dependency from unstable counterparty while preserving globalization wealth.

The article analyses the factors that determine the probability of debtors’ default in the Lithuanian peer-to-peer market. The results of this study are compared with previous research.

This study explores survey data of investors in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending aiming to assess their investment literacy, how this literacy is affected by their financial socialization and the strength of their social ties, and whether this effect differs among investors’ sociodemographic groups. Our research model was built based on Gudmunson and Danes (2011), Gudmunson et al. (2016) and Potrich et al. (2016). It measured investment literacy, assessing three components — knowledge, skills and attitudes; included multiple socialization agents; and investigated both direct and indirect effects of financial socialization. Descriptive and reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and second-order structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis were employed. The results indicate that the investment literacy of P2P lending investors is high. The compound direct effect of financial socialization on the overall level of investment literacy was found to be positive and stronger than on its individual components. Although the strength of social ties had a strong influence on financial socialization, its indirect effect on investment literacy was rather weak. Peers proved to be the main socialization agent and exhibited the strongest social ties with the respondents. The strongest effect of financial socialization on the investment literacy was identified for P2P lending investors in 18–34 years group working in the financial sector with a net monthly income below 1500 euros. The research contributes to the existing literature by providing the methodology and valuable insights into the level of financial literacy among P2P investors and how investment literacy is or is not formed under social interaction in a close social environment.