Competition can be especially powerful when it develops from outside the traditional industry. Therefore to improve effective competition is very important that you have a contestable market, which firstly means low barriers to entry. The present research focuses on identifying and describing barriers to entry and expansion in the banking market. From the perspective of this research entry barriers have been grouped into two groups: regulatory barriers and non-regulatory barriers. Regulatory barriers include prudential regulations, conduct regulations and the authorization process. The list of non-regulatory barriers is much longer and includes cost of agency banking and transactions, consumer reluctance to move current accounts, consumer convenience, branch network and brand name, product range, the high cost of switching etc. The object of the research is the Moldovan banking market. In the article is used the benchmarking method to highlight the level of barriers. The results show that in the Republic of Moldova the non-regulatory barriers are greater than regulatory barriers.