This study is devoted to the analysis of the statistical relationship between the effectiveness of the bank and its specialization. Efficiency in the study is considered as a metric that evaluates the quality of management of an organization. Specialization in this case refers to the bank's concentration on certain types of banking products. The specifics of the study are largely determined by the lack of support for the specialization of banks at the legislative level in the Russian Federation. In accordance with Federal Law No. 92-FZ of May 01, 2017 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation", all banks, mainly depending on the level of capital, receive universal or basic licenses. In this regard, the authors of the study introduce the concept of observed specialization, which is determined based on the shares of various types of bank assets in their total volume. There are three groups of banks – credit, with a large balance share of funds provided, investment – with a large balance share of securities and universal – not included in these groups. To assess the effectiveness, the methodology proposed in [Polyakov, Polyakova et al., 2022] based on shell data analysis (DEA) is used. Partial efficiency estimates obtained for a certain set of DEA model specifications are aggregated into several indicators using the principal component analysis method. The first component acts as an indicator of overall efficiency, the others allow you to determine its sources. There is a positive correlation between the overall performance indicator and the private performance indicators.

The empirical analysis was carried out using data from the financial statements of banks for the period 2020 and the first three quarters of 2021 for a representative sample of banks.The results obtained allow us to assert that the general and, accordingly, all particular performance indicators have a statistical relationship with the observed specialization. Investment banks are the most efficient, and therefore have the best quality of management, followed by a groupof credit banks, which includes, in particular, all the largest banks in the Russian Federation and, finally, universal banks have the lowest overall efficiency on average.

The results obtained may be of great interest to the management of banks, in particular, in the formation and management of bank holdings and groups. According to analysts of the II Congress of the Association of Banks of Russia by September 2020, these structures controlled more than 95% of the assets of the entire banking system of the Russian Federation. Thus, the stability and efficiency of the banking system as a whole is determined by the stability and efficiency of these structures. The results of this study show that the formation of stable and highly efficient bank holdings and groups can be ensured due to the different observed specialization of their participants.