SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE UKRAINIAN STATE-OWNED BANKS

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the peculiarities of the social responsibility concepts in the Ukrainian state-owned banks, i.e. the concepts’ current state, level of their implementation, and perspectives of further development. The aim of the present research is to identify the contents of the state-owned banks social responsibility concepts, outline their structure, and characterise vectors of their implementation.

It is noteworthy that under the present economic and political conditions, social responsibility of banks in general and the state-owned ones in particular has become crucial, as banks of the latter type play a leading role on the banking market accumulating more than 55% of the Ukrainian banking assets as of 01.01.2018; consequently, it is vital to fully implement their social responsibility concepts.

The analysis of the existing state-owned banks concepts allows to arrive at conclusion that each bank has developed their own social responsibility concept (characterised by different level of elaboration) implemented by each bank individually. The research allows to claim that the social responsibility concepts of the domestic state-owned banks includes the following structural components: setting the priority levels and types of the bank’s social responsibility, outlining the principles and vectors of their implementation. The following levels of the social responsibility concept implementation are singled out: a) the basic level; b) the corporate level; c) the highest level. It is determined that the domestic state-owned banks mainly implement the social responsibility concepts at the basic and corporate levels; at the same time, the highest level of the concept implementation requires the improvement of the banks’ close interaction with the NGOs, authorities and communities on local and national levels. The paper also outlines the state-owned banks social responsibility types, i.e. the external and internal social responsibility.

The article offers several principles keeping too which can ensure the effective implementation of the social responsibility concept in the Ukrainian state-owned banks: authenticity, transparency, balance, integrity, voluntariness, equality, maintaining good relationship with the stakeholders, foresight.

In addition, the study analyses the main vectors of the social responsibility concept implementation in Oshchadbank, Ukreximbank, PrivatBank, and Ukrgasbank. It is determined that domestic state-owned banks implement their social responsibility concepts in various vectors, e.g. the mission of each bank includes the concept of its social responsibility. Notably, the state-owned banks most actively follow their internal social responsibility vectors which embrace the employees personal and professional development, charity activities expanding, and the customers’ financial literacy improvement.

As one of the vectors, expanding the scope of the social responsibility concept of the Ukrainian state-owned banks, it looks relevant to improve the quality, stability, and safety of access to financial services for the citizens. The research makes it possible to recommend the state-owned banks to increase the stakeholders’ access to full, timely, and accurate information about financial status of the bank, keeping to the principles of integrity and complying with the ethical standards of the banking activities.