NATIONAL Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited plans to pay out $1.55 billion in dividends next month following $2.2 billion already paid out to ordinary shareholders for the first half of its financial year.

This brings the total dividend payout for the current financial year to $3.75 billion -- 73 per cent higher than last year's dividend payment, which totalled $2.17 billion.

Last Friday, NCB notified the stock exchange that it would pay out an interim dividend of $0.61 per ordinary stock unit to stockholders on record as at May 7, 2010 and payable on May 20, 2010. The X-Date is May 5, 2010.

This follows a December payment of 89 cents a share.

NCB on Friday reported net profits of $2.55 billion over the second quarter ending March 31, 2010, a 14 per cent increase over the comparative period last year, while the banking group's equity grew by $4 billion to $45 billion over the six months to March 31.