The main problem of the research is to consider the possibilities of managing financial assets in the framework of compiling annual reports and presenting the business results of the company. The paper defined the bank's annual financial statements and the asset structure characteristic of financial institutions. Furthermore, the notion of financial assets, classification, initial and subsequent recognition and reclassification was clarified. The change of standards and regulatory framework for the implementation of financial asset management was presented. In addition, the agency theory is described and the problems of information asymmetry, moral hazard and conflicts of interest in the principal - agent relationship that influence decisions regarding classification of financial assets according to the accounting standards. Through the empirical part of the paper, data from banks in Eastern and Western Europe were used, which make up a sample of 1717 banks, in the period from 2012 to 2018. Based on the available data, an analysis of two hypotheses was performed, which examined: - the impact of changes in net gains and losses caused by changes in the fair value of financial assets on the structure of financial assets in the following year, and - the impact of changes in the share of held-to-maturity financial assets on total net trading gains / losses and fair value gains / losses in the following year. Based on the results of the empirical part of the research, a conclusion was given and an opinion was expressed on future research in the field of financial asset management.