Alongside the Third World Foundation, BCCI was establishing a network of BCCI Foundations in a number of countries where the Bank operated. These were generally funded from a share of local profits and were intended to support charitable, social and development work within the countries in which those profits had been generated.
Foundations and related programmes were established in countries including the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, China, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the UAE. Their activities varied according to local needs, but included support for education, health care, social welfare, humanitarian relief and projects intended to contribute to longer-term economic and community development.
The approach reflected Agha Hasan Abedi's belief that a bank should contribute to the societies from which it derived its business. Philanthropy was therefore not regarded simply as occasional corporate giving, but as part of BCCI's wider institutional philosophy.
This philosophy was also reflected internally. From 1982, BCCI's leadership formally identified “Giving” as one of the Bank's four principal values. From 1984, employees were provided with an annual charitable allowance equivalent to 3% of their salary, in addition to their normal remuneration, which they could direct towards charitable causes of their own choice.
The Foundations also complemented BCCI's broader international development initiatives, including the Third World Foundation, its support for Global 2000, educational and scientific programmes, and other projects intended to build institutions rather than provide only short-term charitable assistance.
The surviving documentary record is incomplete. After BCCI's closure in 1991, a substantial volume of the Bank's records passed into the hands of the liquidators, and it is therefore difficult today to reconstruct the full number, funding and activities of all the BCCI Foundations.
More detailed surviving information has so far been identified particularly in relation to Pakistan and Bangladesh, and these are examined separately elsewhere on this website.
What can nevertheless be established from the available material is that philanthropy and development were treated within BCCI as part of the Bank's institutional identity rather than as activities entirely separate from its commercial operations.