Fifth Third Bancorp earned $582 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, equivalent to $0.85 per diluted share, an 18% improvement on the same period a year earlier, the Cincinnati-based bank reported on 21 January 2025. Full-year net income available to common shareholders was $2.2 billion, or $3.14 per diluted share, compared with $2.2 billion, or $3.22, in 2023.
Fourth-quarter diluted EPS of $0.85 compared with $0.78 in the third quarter. Net interest income grew quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of the year, and the net interest margin widened by seven basis points on a sequential basis to 2.97%, helped by a 38-basis-point fall in the cost of interest-bearing liabilities.
CAPITAL AND SHAREHOLDER RETURNS
Fifth Third's Common Equity Tier 1 ratio stood at 10.51% at the end of December. Over the course of 2024, the bank returned $1.6 billion to shareholders through a combination of share buybacks and dividends.
BRANCH EXPANSION AND HOUSEHOLDS
Fifth Third opened 21 new branches in high-growth markets during the fourth quarter. The bank's consumer household count surpassed 2.5 million.