Uncovering the Extent of Social Responsibility of Private Commercial Banks: A Comparative Study on CSR Activities during COVID Pandemic

The true meaning of CSR established when organizations contribute to society both in normal and crisis times where CSR; corporate social responsibilities reflect responsibility and commitment of social wellbeing from organizations to society. Bonding strong relationships with stakeholders, capturing customer loyalty, attracting investors, and holding the responsibilities for society, CSR plays a unique role. People across the world are trapped in the corona pandemic where an enormous loss hit almost every sector and the economy also thundered for a time being. The study focused on CSR initiatives and the dynamism of 43 scheduled Private Commercial Banks (PCBs) in the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic from the banking industry. Published secondary data has been used to perform a comparative analysis on the CSR components to extract the mechanisms of CSR activities and finding the extent the banks have accomplished the policy guideline of Bangladesh bank. The study considered the CSR activities of ten banks from 2018-2021where Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) and Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited discovered as the highest supplier of CSR funds for 2018-2019 while in 2020- 2022, during the COVID, the uppermost contributors were IBBL and EXIM Bank. This study reveals before or after the COVID pandemic, PCBs prioritize disaster-management sectors for their CSR activities while focusing less on environmental, cultural, infrastructure, and income-generating activities. Despite the significance of a state's health-sector, the study didn’t observe as much COVID contribution as expected. However, the contribution from CSR has been gradually increasing since the COVID pandemic broke out.