Ma­jor­i­ty state-owned First Cit­i­zens Group yes­ter­day re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax of $239.96 mil­lion for the three months end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2024, a 1.2 per cent in­crease com­pared to the $237.07 mil­lion the com­mer­cial bank earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

For the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1 to De­cem­ber 31, 2024, the First Cit­i­zens Group record­ed prof­it be­fore tax of $330.7 mil­lion, which was 5.4 mil­lion or 1.7 per cent more, when com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

The group's as­sets to­talled $47.49 bil­lion as at De­cem­ber 31, 2024, which rep­re­sents an in­crease of 5.48 per cent the com­pa­ny de­clared for the quar­ter end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

The bank's loans to cus­tomers for the three-month pe­ri­od end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2024, to­talled $21.75 bil­lion, an in­crease of 5.14 per cent com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2023.

The bank­ing group's earn­ings for the quar­ter amount­ed to $0.95.

In com­ments on the re­sults, First Cit­i­zens Group chair­man, An­tho­ny Smart, said, "As a re­sult of this per­for­mance, the board has de­clared an in­ter­im div­i­dend of $0.52 per or­di­nary share. This div­i­dend will be paid on March 7, 2025 to share­hold­ers on record as at Feb­ru­ary 14, 2025."

For the first quar­ter of the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year, the First Cit­i­zens Group paid $0.50 per or­di­nary share for its first quar­ter. The bank­ing group paid to­tal div­i­dends of $2.37 in its 2024 fi­nan­cial year, which gives it an his­toric yield of 5.65 per cent, which is the high­est of the five banks list­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change.