Corporate Social Responsibility Practices of Commercial Banks in India

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of a business yields welfare measures to the society. The word “responsibility” calls for moral obligations towards the society. Now-a-days CSR has drawn commendable significance in the corporate world including banking sector. Commercial Banks in India are occupied a lot of operations which they showcase as their contribution in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The CSR activities of banks have gained further importance in the wake of new listing guidelines issued by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and on the introduction of Companies Act 2013. The main objective of this article is to make a study on the perception of employees and beneficiaries of the CSR initiatives regarding the major issues that they feel that the bank should take up on priority basis. Further the theoretical aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in commercial banking have also been exposed along with the actual spending by Indian commercial banks for CSR activities during the financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16.