The effectiveness of the functioning of the banking system of any state is determined by the sufficiency of the resource base, mainly formed from deposit sources. The purpose of the article is to assess the state and development trends of the deposit base of state commercial banks of Ukraine, which are the four largest banking institutions in terms of assets and liabilities. The concept of a deposit was highlighted and three basic approaches to the interpretation of this definition were identified. The assessment of the deposit activities of state-owned banks in terms of volume and structure during 2017-2019 was carried out. The results of the analysis show a positive trend towards an increase in the value of deposit resources of all state-owned banks, except for JSC “Ukreximbank”. For the stability of the resource base of commercial banks, the dominance of the share of term deposit funds over demand deposits is necessary. During 2017-2019 such dominance took place in JSC “State Savings Bank of Ukraine” and JSC “Ukreximbank”. The problems of balancing the structure of deposit resources by the terms of attraction were found in JSC CB “Privatbank” and JSC “Ukrgasbank”. As is known a qualitative assessment of the stability of deposit operations is possible only when analyzing a set of relative analytical coefficients. So, the article presents the main indicators that can be used to analyze the effectiveness of the use of attracted resources by banking institutions. Based on the analysis of indicators for assessing term and current deposits, the features of the functioning of the market for deposits of state-owned banks during 2019 were characterized. It was determined that the positive dynamics in the organization of the deposit activities of Ukrainian state banks is the result of an effective deposit policy. Even with low deposit rates, the volume of the deposit portfolio has increased in recent years, which indicates a gradual restoration of the confidence of depositors in the domestic banking system.