The Banking Sector and CSR: an unholy alliance?

Dr Clare Chambers, University of West of England. Email: Clare.Chambers@uwe.ac.uk Robert Day, Bournemouth University. Email: rday@bournemouth.ac.uk For the complete paper with bibliography, please contact the authors.

I Introduction

The aim of the paper is to consider whether banks are already fulfilling their social obligations through their ethical policies or whether they could do more to incorporate those who are without financial products. The question arises of whether banks actually need to be socially and ethically obligated given that banks are simply organisations. This paper will argue that rather than banks being simply corporate entities they have, in fact, due to the growth of industrial society, become part of everyday life to such a degree that they have developed into utility entities thereby justifying calls for corporate social responsibility to be embedded in their actions. If as utilities, their services are not available to all, it is difficult to see how they can claim to be acting in accordance with their own policies. As Wittingdale states, ‘It is self-evident that business cannot simply rule out the exercise of moral judgements in its activities. The question must instead be how corporate social responsibility is defined and managed’ (Wittingdale 2001)