Tunisian listed
banks — H1 2026

For ATB and BH Bank, activity indicators give a read on volumes, funding, NBI and some expenses. They are not enough to pin down net income, the cost of risk or loan quality with confidence. Those figures therefore remain n.a.

The loans/deposits ratio varies widely from one bank to another: around 57% at BIAT and Attijari Bank, versus close to 97% at Banque de Tunisie and above 100% at BH Bank.

This ratio does not measure regulatory liquidity. It shows how much of a bank’s deposit base is already funding its loan book.

At BIAT and Attijari Bank, deposits comfortably exceed loans. The near-term question is not where to find more funding: it is where to put that funding to work at an adequate risk-adjusted return.

Amen Bank also maintains a comfortable margin between loans and deposits.

Conversely, Banque de Tunisie and UBCI sit at around 95%. They can keep growing their loan books, but sustained acceleration will take more deposits, alternative funding, or a reshuffle of the balance sheet.

BNA is close to that level too, but strong deposit growth eases the pressure: an in-between position, not a warning signal.

UIB sits between these groups.

BH Bank exceeds 100% on the available activity data. That does not mean the bank is short of liquidity. It means further lending will take stronger deposit gathering, alternative funding, or a reallocation of the balance sheet. Deposit inflows are nonetheless strong, gradually easing that tension.

ATB, despite shrinking volumes, still holds a deposit base substantially above its loans.

NBI growth differs widely from one bank to another, and so does its composition.

At Amen Bank, NBI is up 17.7%. The securities book plays a large part (more than half of banking revenue). Growth is strong, but customer-driven revenue needs to be read separately from securities and investment income.

BNA takes this further: close to 72% of NBI comes from the securities book. Net income rises sharply while the loan book has barely moved since December.

At Attijari Bank, lending is down while deposits keep flowing in. A growing share of the balance sheet is parked in other earning assets.

BIAT shows the opposite gap: NBI is up just 1.9%, yet net income advances 10.3%. Most of the difference comes from a sharp drop in the cost of risk.

Banque de Tunisie combines double-digit growth in NBI and net income with high operating efficiency.

UBCI also posts double-digit NBI growth, but net income is not yet keeping pace with activity.

UIB lifts NBI on a balance sheet where volumes are broadly stable.

Finally, at STB Bank, balance-sheet volumes are recovering while NBI falls 10.5%.

Rising NBI does not mean the same thing everywhere, and it does not convert into profit equally well.

The cost-to-income ratio (the share of NBI absorbed by operating costs) measures how efficiently banking revenue is turned into operating profit.

Amen Bank and Banque de Tunisie run tight cost bases: revenue growth converts cleanly into profit.

BNA also generates a strong operating result. Its main issue is not cost: it is the risk sitting on the balance sheet.

At Attijari Bank, gross operating income (before the cost of risk) grows faster than NBI. A higher cost of risk, however, claws back part of that improvement.

At BIAT, the half’s profitability owes much to the fall in the cost of risk. That is positive, but it is not the same as an acceleration in revenue.

UIB moves more quietly: NBI, profit and efficiency all improve, without anything sharp enough to change the read on the half.

UBCI is a different story. NBI and volumes grow strongly, but the cost-to-income ratio stays high, around 65% under the H1 definition, and the cost of risk is rising. The growth is real; turning it into profit is still the main job ahead.

For ATB, H1 net income is not available. The indicators nonetheless show operating expenses growing faster than NBI, while net loans fall by 8.62% versus H1 2025 and deposits by 2.18%. The grid’s dot therefore judges only what is observable (efficiency), not a net income figure that has not been published.

For BH Bank, the same caution applies: net income is not available, but staff costs and general expenses are growing markedly faster than NBI.

At STB Bank, the cost-to-income ratio deteriorates noticeably, to around 60%, while net income falls sharply. Activity is coming back; profit is not yet.

Classified exposures (loans and other commitments that banking regulation classifies as at risk) make it possible to judge loan quality, not just loan volume.

Amen Bank sees its classified-exposure ratio move to 8.70%, from 8.37% at end-2025. Coverage nonetheless rises to 72.21%. The cost of risk increases in value but remains absorbed by the strong growth in revenue and net income. The profile remains solid, though not without a point to watch.

Banque de Tunisie posts 6.49% of classified exposures and 85.69% coverage. The slight rise in the classified ratio is offset by a high and improving coverage level.

At Attijari Bank, classified exposures and the cost of risk rise slightly. Levels remain contained, but the trend prevents this from being a genuine strength.

BIAT benefits from a sharp fall in the cost of risk, to around MDT 17.9 in H1. We remain cautious: that fall explains a good part of the profit increase, and it will need to prove durable.

BNA improves its classified-exposure ratio, to around 21.59%, and lifts its coverage to 59.35%. The direction is right; the stock is still high enough to warrant vigilance.

At UBCI, the reading is more balanced than a simple rise in the cost of risk would suggest. The classified-loan ratio falls to around 5.13% and coverage stays close to 74%, while the cost of risk increases.

UIB is cutting its cost of risk and gradually improving its indicators, but the move is still too recent to count as a durable strength.

For ATB and BH Bank, no judgement is made on H1 risk before the full financial statements are published.

For STB Bank, the H1 accounts keep risk on the watch list.

Capital adequacy ratios are not all published at the same date. The comparison therefore uses the latest sufficiently recent official ratio available, with its date shown.

For ATB, annual financial statements as at 31 December 2025 were indeed published. But no sufficiently documented 2025 capital ratio could be retained in this comparison. The last ratio explicitly found, 10.49% as at 31 December 2024, is too old to fill the 2025 cell artificially.

Capital adequacy measures a bank’s capacity to absorb the risks on its balance sheet. It does not, by itself, provide the resources that fund a new loan.

A bank can therefore hold comfortable regulatory capital while still needing to raise more deposits to support additional lending. Conversely, a very liquid bank may nonetheless have less capital headroom to grow its balance sheet.

BNA holds an unusually deep capital buffer. Amen Bank, Banque de Tunisie, BH Bank, BIAT, STB Bank, UBCI and UIB also hold a comfortable prudential margin on the latest published ratio.

Attijari Bank remains above requirements, but with a narrower margin than the best-capitalised banks of the panel.

Each column is read separately. The dots are neither added nor averaged, and they constitute neither a score nor a recommendation.

The Growth column combines volumes, NBI and net income where published. Profitability / efficiency looks at how revenue converts into profit. Risk looks at the cost of risk, classified exposures and their coverage. Funding looks at how far deposits are already mobilised to finance loans, and how they evolve. Capital uses the latest sufficiently recent official ratio.

The grid reveals what a ranking would hide: one bank can hold very comfortable capital while carrying more risk; another can grow fast while already using its resources intensively; a third can hold abundant deposits without accelerating its lending.

The comparison does not point to a winning bank. It shows different constraints.

The banks with the most abundant resources are not necessarily those growing their loan books fastest. The best-capitalised banks are not necessarily those carrying the least risk. And the fastest NBI growth does not guarantee the best conversion into profit.

Three trade-offs dominate the half.

The first is between growth and risk. Lending more only has value if the additional gain durably covers the cost of risk.

The second is between capital and funding. Capital absorbs risk; it does not replace the deposits and resources that fund loans.

The third is between volume and return. For banks already holding abundant resources, the question is no longer only how much they can lend, but at what return, once risk is taken into account, they can deploy their balance sheet.

That is why a reading based solely on NBI or net income growth gives an incomplete picture of H1 2026.

The real question is not which bank posts the best half. It is to identify, for each of them, the next constraint that could hold back value creation: risk, capital, funding, efficiency, or the ability to deploy the balance sheet at a sufficient return.

ATB and BH Bank also illustrate a discipline of method: where a decisive figure is not published, it remains visibly missing. It is neither guessed nor replaced by an estimate.