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It looks like Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 3 days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before a company's record date, which is the date on which the company determines which shareholders are entitled to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. Accordingly, Fifth Third Bancorp investors that purchase the stock on or after the 31st of March will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 15th of April.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.37 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$1.48 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Fifth Third Bancorp has a trailing yield of approximately 3.7% on its current stock price of US$40.17. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Fifth Third Bancorp's dividend is reliable and sustainable. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.

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Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. That's why it's good to see Fifth Third Bancorp paying out a modest 46% of its earnings.

When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.

View our latest analysis for Fifth Third Bancorp

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Stocks with flat earnings can still be attractive dividend payers, but it is important to be more conservative with your approach and demand a greater margin for safety when it comes to dividend sustainability. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. With that in mind, we're not enthused to see that Fifth Third Bancorp's earnings per share have remained effectively flat over the past five years. It's better than seeing them drop, certainly, but over the long term, all of the best dividend stocks are able to meaningfully grow their earnings per share.