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.”