One of Nigeria’s leading financial institutions Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GT Bank) has it announced an interim dividend of N7.4 billion ($45.4 million) for the half year ended June 30, 2014.

The dividend, which translates into 25 kobo dividend per share will be paid on September 18, 2014 to shareholders whose names would appear on the register of the bank as at September 4. To be paid out of the N44 billion ($271.5 million) profit after tax recorded for the half year, the dividend is similar to what was paid out last year.

GTBank has a policy that gives shareholders dividends twice a year and the bank has been consistent with this policy of paying interim and final dividends.

However, the bank suffered mixed fortunes in its half-year performance with a 7 percent increase in gross earnings against a similar profit before tax dip. While its earnings rose from N124 billion ($764.2 million) in the corresponding year period of 2013 to N132 billion (813.6 million) in 2014, its profit before tax fell to N53.40 billion ($329.1 million) in the first half of the year from N57.4 billion ($353.8 million) recorded in H1 2013.

GTBank’s CEO Segun Agbaje had, at the release of the report stated the bank’s focus in internet and mobile banking. “A major objective for the bank this year is to offer our customers greater convenience and accessibility to our services using internet and mobile solutions and we have, to date achieved over a million downloads of our mobile banking app and experienced a 25 percent increase in active internet banking users,” he said.