The Board of Directors of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc will meet next week to consider the company’s financial statements for 2014 and a declaration of a dividend among others.

Market operators said the company will likely recommend a dividend for the shareholders considering its nine months performance, which was relatively impressive.

According to the Stanbic IBTC’s nine months’ results to September 30, 2014, 57.3 per cent growth in profit after tax grew by 57.3 per cent. Top line grew from N82.9 billion in 2013, to N94.6 billion in the 2014.

Similarly, its bottom line increased from N16.1 billion as at September last year, to N25.3 billion as at the end of September 2014.

Analysis of the results showed that its interest income rose by 13.2 per cent year-on-year, to N52.3 billion, from the N46.2 billion in 2013.

Also, non-interest income stood at N41.7 billion in 2014, from N36.4 billion in 2013, representing a 14.4 per cent increase.

However, despite the 36.4 per cent increase in the bank’s interest bearing assets from N647.48 billion in 2013 to N883.3 billion in 2014, its net interest margin (NIM) declined to 5.6 per cent, lower than the 5.9 per cent reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Stanbic IBTC’s cost of risk (CoR) inched lower to 0.5 per cent as at the period under review, from 0.6 per cent in 2013, due to an 88.8 per cent decline in impairment charges.

Assessing the performance, analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited, said, “This decline in NIM can be associated to the less than proportionate increase in net interest income relative to the increase in interest bearing assets. However, the mild 4.4 per cent decline in risk assets from N427.4 billion in its nine months 2013 to N408.8 billion as at September 2014 and corresponding 137 per cent increase in investment  securities from N141.8 billion to N335.9 billion underscores an expanded preference for risk free investments.”

Stanbic IBTC was one of the three banking stocks that outperformed the Nigeria Stock Exchange All-Share Index last year.