Nature and Extent of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Indian Banking Sector

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), are societal initiatives of an organization for the community welfare and development. The purpose of the present study is to highlight the corporate social responsibility disclosure of Indian banks for the financial year 2014-15 to 2016-17. The contribution of Indian banks in CSR initiatives has been observed in the form of development of the rural sector, the contribution in basic education, generating more employment opportunities, public healthcare, and sanitation, etc. CSR has been emerged as an important factor in facilitating sustainable growth and valuing the stakeholder and featured as a competitive edge in the banking sector over its rivals and improves the reputation. The results of the study highlighted the compounded CSR spent and sector-wise CSR contributions by the Indian banks during the period of study. A compounded downfall of 7.70 percent has been observed in the growth of the amount required to CSR spent. Simultaneously, the downfall of 8.39 percent in the actual CSR spent has also been recorded in the study. But on the other hand, the amount of CSR spent of all sample banks has been increased by a compound growth of 22.60 percent during the period of study. Besides, the growth analysis of “sector-wise” CSR spent reflected an increase in the compound growth of all sectors by 21.80 percent.