The board of Saudi British Bank (SABB), an affiliate of HSBC Holdings, has recommended a cash dividend of SR0.40 ($0.11) per share for the first half of the year, the bank said in a bourse filing on Thursday.

It is the first time the bank has paid a half-year dividend since at least 2010, according to Thomson Reuters data.

In December, the bank recommended a cash dividend of SR1.05 per share for 2014.

The kingdom's sixth-largest bank by assets posted a 1.71 per cent drop in its second-quarter net profit on Wednesday to SR1.14 billion. - Reuters