Republic Bancorp (RBCAA), the holding company for Republic Bank & Trust Company, has disclosed a 13.97 percent climb in profit for the quarter ended Sep. 30, 2014. The company earned $5.25 million or $0.25 a share in the third quarter compared with $4.60 million or $0.22 a share, a year ago.

Revenue during the third-quarter went down marginally 1.25 percent to $35.59 million from $36.04 million in the last year period.

Steve Trager, Republic's chairman and chief executive officer, commented, ''I am excited that in this very competitive lending environment, we have seen two consecutive quarters of strong loan growth. This growth was the result of executing on a plan and taking advantage of opportunities, without compromising our overall credit standards. Furthermore, we have expanded our market reach and customer base during the first nine months of 2014 through our warehouse and correspondent lending channels, while also continuing to win business within our traditional footprint. Our strong loan growth has allowed us to deploy much of our excess cash from the beginning of the year into higher yielding loan products, helping us to partially offset the negative impact of a continued low interest rate environment. Based on our current pipelines, we are encouraged that our loan growth momentum will continue during the fourth quarter of 2014.''

Net interest income for the quarter dropped 0.34 percent over the prior year period to $28.44 million.

Non-interest income for the quarter fell 4.73 percent over the last year period to $7.14 million.

Republic Bancorp has made provision of $1.51 million for loan losses during the quarter, which was lower by 31.36 percent from $2.20 million in the same period last year.