A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CSR SPENDING & CSR REPORTING PRACTICES OF SELECTED BANKS IN INDIA

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices adopted by the selected dominant Indian Public Banks, Indian Private Banks & Foreign Banks Operating in India. One on hand of the research analysis, is the Banking Sector – a dominant service industry in India, that contributes considerably towards India’s growth by maintaining the equilibrium in the financial ecosystem, and on the other side of the research, is the contemporary concept of CSR, where the society, government and corporates have joint interest and leverage. And therefore, it will be quite interesting to review the CSR practices adopted by Banking Sector. In the present study, the researcher analyzes & compares the CSR practices adopted by the sample Banks with respect to CSR Spending and CSR Reporting patterns. Further, it is endeavored to determine the most preferred and most neglected CSR areas by the sample banks. And thereby some suggestions are presented to improve the CSR practices to better serve the society and fulfill the CSR legal obligations as per the Companies Act, 2013. The results of the study confirm that Indian Private Banks are the most compliant towards CSR spending & Reporting and the most preferred CSR areas are regular CSR areas of: Healthcare, Education, Environmental Sustainability etc., and most neglected CSR areas are also continuously same: Contributions to Technology Incubators, Slum Development Projects etc.