Determinants of bank social responsibility: case of Croatia

Recently fi nancial sector and its responsibilities have come under great scrutiny. This has led to putting more emphasis on social responsibility of fi nancial institutions, primarily banks, due to their powerful and infl uential position. Banks have an impact not only on fi nancial and economic system, but on a wider community as well. Their socially responsible practices in particular may have important social implications, what is even more emphasized within bank-centric fi nancial systems, typical of CEE countries. Due to a lack of existing research, the aim of the paper is to assess social responsibility of banks at individual and industry level in a specifi c CEE context. At bank individual level, focus is put on factors of bank size, ownership status and fi nancial performance, while at the bank industry level the structure of granted loans is included in the analysis. The framework for assessing bank social responsibility is derived and adapted from previous research conducted by et al. 23 and Scholtens It is applied to Croatian banking sector, while the level of social responsibility is empirically related to factors at bank individual and industry level.