As an ASX 200 banking share, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) share price arguably has some expectations to fill when it comes to paying dividends.
The big four ASX banks are staples of ASX investors' share portfolios, and have been for decades. A large part of this fondness for bank shares is the banks' proclivity to pay large, fully franked dividend payments.
On the surface, ANZ shares seem to be filling this implicit obligation with gusto today. As the bank currently stands, it has a fully franked dividend yield of 5.69% (or 8.13% grossed-up with the full franking) on the table.
But has the ANZ dividend been growing? After all, a growing dividend is a lot more valuable to an investor over a long period of time than a stagnant one.
Well, let's look at the facts, shall we?
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Is the ANZ dividend a grower?
ANZ's current dividend yield comes from the bank's two most recent dividend payments.
The first of these was the fully franked final dividend of 72 cents per share that investors saw paid out back in December. The second is the interim dividend of 72 cents per share (again fully franked) that investors will receive on 1 July later this year. ANZ shares traded ex-dividend for this payment on 9 May.
But how do these dividends compare to those investors have received in recent years?
Well, last year's interim dividend was only worth 70 cents per share. So there has been a 2.86% year-on-year increase there. And last year's final dividend of 72 cents was an even bigger jump against 2020's final payment of 35 cents per share.
But that was in the midst of the initial COVID crisis, so arguably this comparison doesn't count for too much.
Let's go back to the pre-COVID world of 2019 then. Back in 2019, ANZ paid out two dividends worth 80 cents each. This was a repeat of the dividends that ANZ paid out back in 2018, 2017, and 2016. In 2015 the bank doled out an interim dividend of 86 cents per share and a final dividend of 95 cents.
So yes, the ANZ dividend has increased this year compared to last. But you don't have to go back too far to see dividends from ANZ shares that were far higher than those on offer today. Make of that what you will.
