If an ASX investor is on the hunt for their next dividend share, they might be drawn to the financial sector of the Australian markets. ASX financial shares have long been known for their hefty dividend potential, mainly thanks to the generosity of the ASX bank shares. AMP Ltd (ASX: AMP) is a financial share, and does have a banking division. But does this make the company a sound dividend investment?
AMP is one of the ASX's most interesting stocks, at least in my view.
This company has had quite the journey since demutualising and floating on the ASX back in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, it has been a rather arduous journey for most of the past two and a half decades. The company once commanded a price of almost $15 a share back in its early ASX days. However, chronic mismanagement and a series of scandals proved to be catastrophic for those investors who received AMP shares as part of their demutualisation. Since January 1999, the AMP share price has collapsed by more than 87%. That's a pretty rough return for more than 27 years of waiting.
More recently, though, AMP seems to have at least steadied the ship. At $1.70 a share today (at the time of writing), AMP is up about 14.5% over the past 12 months, and up by more than 54% since mid 2021.
But how does this financial stock measure up when it comes to dividend income? Can it rival its larger and more popular peer in the financial space?
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AMP shares: What kind of dividends are on offer today?
At today's price of $1.70 a share, AMP stock is trading on a trailing yield of 2.37%. That stems from the last two dividends the company has paid out. The first of those was the final dividend worth 2 cents per share that we saw doled out back in April. The second was the interim dividend from September, also worth 2 cents per share. Both payments came partially franked at 20%.
The final dividend was a particularly welcome one, as it represented a 100% increase on the 1 cent per share payout investors bagged in April 2025.
Saying that, investors have had better in the past. For example, 2023 saw shareholders receive two payments worth 2.5 cents per share each.
Still, AMP's relatively low yield and lack of full franking do arguably make the company uncompetitive in the ASX financial space when it comes to dividends. At least where things currently stand.
Who knows what the future might hold, though. As my Fool colleague Samantha recently covered, many ASX brokers are bullish on AMP shares right now. Perhaps the company will keep improving its income offerings to investors going forward. We'll have to wait and see.
