GoldenBee Research on CSR Report of Chinese Banking Industry in China 2014

By October 9, 2014, we collected 41 CSR reports released by banking enterprises through their submission, downloading from their website, network searching and other channels. We evaluated them in accordance with GoldenBee CSR Report Evaluation System 2014. Besides, we gave a general description of these reports, comparing, analyzing and evaluating their overall quality and summarizing their characteristics on the basis of reporting parameters and in connection with our experience in preparing and consulting of CSR reports. On this basis, we made relevant recommendation.
The overview of CSR reports of bank enterprises in 2014
41     By October 9, 2014, we collected 41 CSR reports of …, an increase of 6 CSR reports, 3 of which are from medium and small financial institutions in rural areas.
10     Of the 41 reports, 10 are take reference to the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G4) released by GRI.
26      26 enterprises have been released the CSR reports for successive 5 years.
36.6%  15 banks invited the third-party institutions to do the assurance。15 enterprises also did the assurance last year.
13     Of the 41 reports, 13 reports are with Chinese and English versions, including 3 foreign-invested banks and 10domestic banks.
By analyzing the data, we find that the score rate of “materiality” is 73.59%, which is relatively high for the overall situation of the CSR reports.
On one hand, the average score of these banks is 66.08 points, and the overall level is the “developing” stage, but during our analysis, we also find that some “good” and “excellent” reports; on the other hand, different types of banks have different marketing positions and with different ownerships. Thus it is necessary to analyze different tapes of banks.
The overall quality of CSR reports of banking industry
In 2014, the average score of SR reports of banking industry is 66.08 points, greatly improved than the 60.10 in 2013.but it is still in the developing stage.
From the six properties of the CSR report, the "materiality" is more outstanding for the banking industry , a big progress than that of last year, the " creativity" also has improved, but the "completeness", "feasibility", "readability" and "comparability" have a lower score than that of last year, especially the “comparability" has a strip decline.
Analysis on the assessment items
The score on "Practice" is high, and most reports explain the fulfillment of CSR from economy, society, and environment .score on "Plan" is low, and most reports only disclose the concrete practices in this year and there is no plan or promise on the fulfillment of social responsibility for the future."Stakeholders" indicators show that fewer than half of the banks have systematic content on stakeholders. Stakeholder identification is an important link of the social responsibility, and it should draw more attention. "The third-party assurance" and "social responsibility expert evaluation" score low. The third-party assurance can strengthen the trust of the society for the report. It also deserves the attention.
“Clear Information positioning” indicator shows that more reports did not form logical content positioning. Social responsibility reports disclose corporate social responsibility practice for the entire year, and if there is no clear positioning tool, the readability will be greatly affected. The "Comparability" scores low on the whole, especially "cross-industry comparability" scores low. Banks play a huge role in the development of national economy, and it has an obligation to lead the development of social responsibility for the whole industry, and make progress together with the other industries. For the assessment on "creativity”, "form creativity" and "structure creativity" is lower than “idea creativity”. Obviously, half of the CSR reports have made progress on the creativity consciousness of social responsibility, but it needs more improvement on the structure and form to promote the report dissemination.
Large gap between different types of Banks
There is a large gap between the different types of banks, and it apparently formed two groups: the policy banks, national development bank, large commercial banks, postal savings banks, joint-stock commercial banks form the subjective of the “good" and "excellent" reports, the first group; The city commercial banks, foreign banks, rural small and medium-sized financial institutions form the subjective of the "improved", "developing" reports of the second group.
Looking from the specific assessment on seven types of banks, "credibility" and "comparability" are generally with low scores, which should be the focus for the entire banking industry in terms of the CSR reports.
Our Findings
Obvious effect of "wild geese model"
1. There are gradient differences between different types of banks and the difference is obvious;
2. There is convergence tendency within the same types of banks.
3. City commercial banks, the rural small and medium-sized financial institutions, and foreign banks have the trend to close to" the wild goose leader” and the effect will proliferate in the future.
Social responsibility management show systematic trend
Seen From the information disclosure on current banking reports, some banks puts forward the strategy of sustainable development, and social responsibility management shows systematic trend.
The application degree of new generation of standard is high d
Banking industry becomes one of the industries with the widest application of the Sustainable Development Guidelines (G4). so far, a total of 10 banks have used G4 in their CSR reports in different levels to make information disclosure on sustainable development over the past year Notably, in this 10 report, 90% have been released the CSR reports for more than five years, 60% are bilingual version, and 100% have conduct the third party assurance.
Suggestions
To advocate more banks release CSR report: Banking industry is a supporting industry for the national economic development. In the future, we hope to see more banking financial institutions release CSR report, and conduct good communication with the outside.
To promote more enterprises apply G4 : this will help to standardize information disclosure mechanism, improve the quality of reports for the overall industry, show the image of Chinese enterprises in the international communication, and lead more Chinese enterprises to meet and understand the corporate social responsibility.
To strengthen information credibility of the reports: It is suggested to appropriately increase the third party assurance, the evaluations from CSR experts, assessment from stakeholders to improve the external’s recognition on the report and enterprise.
To increase the plans for the next year: This will form the longitudinal comparable data disclosure, and increase communication between industry and cross-industry.
To increase information disclosure on the negative aspect: This will make stakeholders more clearly understand the ins and outs of what happened, explain the attitude and actions of enterprise to deal in a more transparent way to obtain the support of stakeholders and social identity.