This paper aims at examining the relationship between the board composition and corporate social responsibility (CSR) of a sample of listed financial entities, discussing the reasons driving these entities to disclose CSR information. We hypothesise that there is a positive association between outside (institutional and independent directors) and female directors and CSR disclosure, and a negative relationship between inside directors and CSR reporting. Our findings provide evidence that the presence of independent directors and female directors on boards promotes CSR disclosure. Moreover, the results also show that the presence of inside directors and institutional directors on boards does not have an influence on CSR reporting. Thus, our evidence suggests that board attributes, such as the presence of independent and female directors, encourage financial entities to report CSR matters, showing the effectiveness of these two corporate governance mechanisms. The paper sheds light on the influence of the board structure of financial entities on CSR disclosure. Therefore, this study contributes to past research by providing an index for measuring the CSR disclosure of financial entities and the importance of the distinction between outside and inside directors.