Royal Bank is raising its dividend as the bank says earnings increased 73 per cent in the third quarter, marking its highest quarterly profit ever.

The bank says its quarterly dividend will increase by five per cent to 60 cents per share. The bank had already boosted its dividend earlier this year — by six per cent in the first quarter.

Earnings grew to $2.24 billion, equal to $1.47 per share, partly on strength in its Canadian consumer banking operations. That compared with earnings of $1.29 billion or 83 cents per share in the year-earlier period.

Total revenue was $7.76 billion versus $6.9 billion a year earlier.

Excluding certain items, net income from continuing operations was $1.978 billion, up 18 per cent from last year, due mainly to record earnings in Canadian banking and strong performance in capital markets.

Canadian banking net income was a record $1.127 billion, up $239 million compared with last year.

Analysts had expected earnings per share of $1.18 on revenue of nearly $7.22 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

In March, Moody's debt rating agency placed Royal Bank under review for a possible downgrade, but did not put the bank's covered bond ratings on review.

The Royal Bank has said it does not believe it deserved to be among a group of the world's largest banks whose credit ratings were placed under review by Moody's because of their exposure to the global capital markets business.

Royal Bank is the country's largest bank by assets and market capitalization and has 80,000 employees serving more than 15 million clients. The bank has operations across North America and in 51 other countries.