First Cit­i­zens Group has an­nounced the res­ig­na­tion of its act­ing group chief risk of­fi­cer, Ne­sha Ramkha­lawan, bring­ing to an end a ca­reer at the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion that spanned sev­er­al se­nior lead­er­ship po­si­tions in risk man­age­ment.

A le­gal no­tice pub­lished yes­ter­day said Ramkha­lawan re­signed from the role of group chief risk of­fi­cer (Ag.), ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 7, 2026. The group thanked her for her years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice and wished her well in her fu­ture en­deav­ours.

Ramkha­lawan built her ca­reer with­in First Cit­i­zens through a se­ries of pro­gres­sive­ly se­nior po­si­tions cen­tred on risk over­sight. Be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed act­ing group chief Risk of­fi­cer, she served as as­sis­tant gen­er­al man­ag­er, cred­it risk, where she was re­spon­si­ble for over­see­ing cred­it risk as­sess­ments and mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies.

She al­so held the po­si­tion of cor­po­rate man­ag­er, mar­ket risk, man­ag­ing the Group's ex­po­sure to mar­ket risks and con­tribut­ing to its broad­er risk man­age­ment frame­work.

Ear­li­er in her ca­reer, she served as man­ag­er, pen­sions and pri­vate port­fo­lios, over­see­ing pen­sion funds and pri­vate in­vest­ment port­fo­lios.
The de­par­ture comes as First Cit­i­zens con­tin­ues to nav­i­gate a more chal­leng­ing op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment while main­tain­ing a strong fi­nan­cial po­si­tion.

For the six months end­ed March 31, 2026, the Group re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax of $422.9 mil­lion, a de­cline of $22 mil­lion, or 4.9 per cent, com­pared with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025.

In his chair­man's re­port, Shankar Bidaisee said the low­er earn­ings came de­spite to­tal net rev­enue in­creas­ing by $101.8 mil­lion, or 7.3 per cent. He iden­ti­fied the in­tro­duc­tion of the as­set levy on li­censed com­mer­cial banks and a pru­dent ap­proach to cred­it im­pair­ment as the main fac­tors af­fect­ing prof­itabil­i­ty.

The Group's bal­ance sheet con­tin­ued to ex­pand dur­ing the pe­ri­od, with to­tal as­sets ris­ing by 2.2 per cent from $49.2 bil­lion at Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, to $50.3 bil­lion at March 31, 2026.

The board de­clared a sec­ond in­ter­im div­i­dend of 54 cents per or­di­nary share, bring­ing the to­tal in­ter­im div­i­dend for the six-month pe­ri­od to $1.09 per share, up 2.8 per cent from the $1.06 paid dur­ing the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year.
Bidaisee said the Group re­mains fo­cused on mon­i­tor­ing de­vel­op­ments in the glob­al and re­gion­al economies and their po­ten­tial im­pact on cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties. He added that First Cit­i­zens would con­tin­ue to safe­guard stake­hold­ers' in­ter­ests through pru­dent risk man­age­ment, strong gov­er­nance and prod­uct di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion while main­tain­ing its com­mit­ment to cus­tomers, share­hold­ers and com­mu­ni­ty in­vest­ment.
First Cit­i­zens has not an­nounced who will as­sume the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of act­ing Group Chief Risk Of­fi­cer fol­low­ing Ramkha­lawan's res­ig­na­tion.