Ma­jor­i­ty state-owned First Cit­i­zens Group Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings yes­ter­day re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $645.98 mil­lion for the nine months end­ed June 30, 2026, a 10.2 per cent de­cline com­pared to the $719.6 mil­lion the bank­ing group earned for the same pe­ri­od last year.

First Cit­i­zens chair­man, Shankar Bidaisee, said the group con­tin­ued to demon­strate its fi­nan­cial strength and re­silience dur­ing the pe­ri­od de­spite a more chal­leng­ing op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

He ex­plained, “While high­er cred­it im­pair­ment charges, ris­ing fund­ing costs, tight­en­ing liq­uid­i­ty con­di­tions and the in­tro­duc­tion of the com­mer­cial as­set levy ap­plic­a­ble to li­censed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions weighed on earn­ings dur­ing the pe­ri­od, the group re­mained well cap­i­talised, high­ly liq­uid and firm­ly fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing long-term val­ue to share­hold­ers. Prof­it af­ter tax de­creased by $73.6 mil­lion or 10.2 per cent, com­pared with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025. How­ev­er, to­tal net rev­enue in­creased by $68.9 mil­lion (3.3 per cent) to $2.2 bil­lion, re­flect­ing the un­der­ly­ing re­silience of the group’s di­ver­si­fied busi­ness mod­el and the con­tin­ued strength of its core bank­ing and fi­nan­cial ser­vices op­er­a­tions.”

The group al­so main­tained a strong fi­nan­cial po­si­tion with to­tal as­sets in­creas­ing by 0.9 per cent to $49.6 bil­lion at June 30, 2026, sup­port­ed by a sound cap­i­tal base and ro­bust liq­uid­i­ty po­si­tion.

Bidaisee said, “While glob­al and re­gion­al eco­nom­ic con­di­tions re­main un­cer­tain, in­flu­enced by geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures and evolv­ing in­ter­est rate con­di­tions, the group re­mains well po­si­tioned to nav­i­gate these chal­lenges through pru­dent risk man­age­ment, dis­ci­plined cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion and strong gov­er­nance. We will con­tin­ue to fo­cus on main­tain­ing the strength of our bal­ance sheet, pre­serv­ing sound liq­uid­i­ty and cap­i­tal lev­els and sup­port­ing our cus­tomers and the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.”

He said look­ing ahead, the bank­ing group’s strate­gic pri­or­i­ties re­main cen­tred on dis­ci­plined cap­i­tal al­lo­ca­tion, dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion, op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence and sus­tain­able growth.

“We al­so re­main com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment through mean­ing­ful in­vest­ments in ed­u­ca­tion, cul­ture, sport and com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives while con­tin­u­ing to cre­ate long-term val­ue for our share­hold­ers,” said Bidaisee.

The board has de­clared a third in­ter­im div­i­dend of $0.48 per or­di­nary share, bring­ing the to­tal div­i­dend de­clared for the nine-month pe­ri­od to $1.57 per or­di­nary share. The div­i­dend will be paid on Au­gust 28, 2026 to share­hold­ers on record as at Au­gust 14, 2026.