The term Cproject managements is becoming more and more fashionable from year to year, while often totally different meanings are imported in it. Meanwhile, when it comes to the professional project management, the focus should be primarily on the project implementation technologies. These include the issues of management of time, money, risk, contractors, supplies, borders, as well as human resources and project communications. Competent project management demands deep professional knowledge and expe­rience from the project manager.

In many developed countries, project manager is a profession, and a project cannot be launched unless it is managed by a certified professional with relevant experience. Unfortunately, such approach is by no means always applied in Russia. The "driver's seat" is often occupied by managers having only superficial knowledge of the tools and methods, and having no project implementation experience, which leads to missed deadlines, budget overruns, and sometimes wipes out the probability of successful completion of the project as a whole.

However, there still are positive trends in project management development in Russia. A major step forward was the Russian state standards (GOSTs) for project, program and portfolio management which came into force on September 1, 2012. The questions of project management efficiency are being increasingly raised by the representatives of the public sector, those holding the highest offices. These trends bring hope that the number of missed opportunities and the amount of lost money, including in the implementation of government programs, in the Russian practice will be reduced greatly. According to the statistics, the application of standard project techniques in large projects, with their cost being 2% to 10% of the budget, gives an economic effect of 15-20%.

Commercial companies came to realize the effectiveness of the project approach much earlier than the state institutions. The majority of banking sector organizations actively use project management technologies and tools. Almost all major banks implemented corporate standards and have project offices. First of all, this is due to the high level of competition in the banking sector. Implementation of project management technologies, successful implementation of projects with tight deadlines and competitive budgets are the constituent elements of victory in the competition.

Nevertheless, many financial institutions reduce the application of the project approach to internal projects only: development of new banking products, implementation of information systems, expansion of branch network, etc. Meanwhile, the larger the project, the more funds involved, the more severe will be the consequences of failure to implement. In most cases, when deciding on whether or not to grant the borrower a loan to invest in a large project, banking organizations are guided primarily by the project's financial viability, pay­back period, etc., leaving the project's implementation stage overlooked. However, this phase often becomes a stumbling block in many large and promising projects. The lack of professional manager, well-organized team, and efficient project management sys­tem leads to long-term business plans being unfulfilled: the project's timeframe and budget increase, the results remain far from expectations, and some of them just end up in a fiasco.

To avoid such consequences, back at the project proposal consideration stage, the bank needs to understand whether the borrower is able to effectively manage the execution of the business plan. In the West, it is already quite customary for the companies applying for financing of investment projects to have the level of their project management maturity certified. This serves as a guarantee to the financial institution that the borrowing company has the necessary expertise for the implementation of the project, which significantly reduces the risks of the bank when financing invest­ment projects.

Banking organizations are rarely able to independently assess the project management system of the potential borrower, as it requires special expertise. Such a problem can be addressed by engaging a professional company, which will issue an expert opinion on the maturity and quality of the bor­rower's project management. It is already common for major banks to contract independent specialized organizations for the examination of investment application, but at the moment such examination is limited to the audit of the financial aspects and technical details of the business plan, without ex­tending to the assessment of the borrower's ability to successfully implement the project. Meanwhile, such examination might enable the financial institution to secure additional guarantees that the project will be implemented professionally, using advanced technologies and project management techniques.

Professional project management services may be required by a banking organization not only at the stage of deciding on the participation in the investment project. Often a major successfully launched project would come to a standstill after some time. The contractors shift the schedule, the budget begins to "bloat". Information on such projects appears regularly in the media. Most often the reasons for such deviations are errors in the planning, risk management, deadlines, supplies, etc. When a project falls into crisis, the principles of its management need to be altered. Again, the bottlenecks requiring special attention can be identified through expert assessment by a professional company. Along with the identification of strengths and weaknesses in the project management, and the specific recommendations as to the improvement of the man­agement process efficiency, an audit of the critical project enables the investor to obtain objective information to make an informed decision on further investments in the project.

Project management technologies are constantly evolving. For example, in the latter versions of almost all international standards special attention is paid to the management of the interested parties (stakeholders) of the project. There are such parties in any project, and even without participating actively, they can have a strong impact on the course of its implementation by both facilitating as well as doing harm to it, based on their own interests.

In banking, such conflicts of interest between the project participants are particularly relevant in the implementation of M&A projects. No technical implications associated with the information and financial systems' integration will do so much harm to the project's success as the unresolved contradictions between the interested parties. That is why stake­holder management should be performed in a highly professional manner in M&A projects.

Thus, the use of project management technologies allows banking organizations to successfully implement internal and development projects, as well as significantly reduce the risks associated with the financing of large-scale investment business plans.