Saudi’s National Commercial Bank proposes lower H1 dividend

DUBAI: The board of Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank (NCB) recommended paying a cash dividend of 0.60 riyal per share for the first half of 2016, the kingdom’s largest lender said in a bourse filing on Wednesday.

The payout is lower than the 0.80 riyal per share which the bank paid for the first half of last year, bourse data showed.

NCB reported a 1 per cent rise in first-quarter net profit to June 2016. The bank made a net profit of 2.63 billion riyals ($701.5 million) in the three months to March 31, up from 2.61 billion riyals in the same period of 2015.