What net banking income and net profit do not say

Net banking income (NBI) blends two businesses. The first is commercial banking: lending, taking deposits, charging for services. The second is holding securities for own account. Its revenue is booked under "income from the investment portfolio".

That portfolio brings together two families of securities. Investment securities are, in principle, held to maturity. They are mostly government paper: fungible Treasury bonds (BTA) and national loans. Equity investments, in subsidiaries and associates, pay dividends.

Taken together, the eight banks that publish this detail hold at least 80% of their investment securities in government paper. The portfolio also includes funds entrusted to venture-capital investment companies (SICAR), known as managed funds, and bond issues. Units in venture-capital mutual funds (FCPR) come on top. Dividends from equity investments vary with what subsidiaries pay out.

The same weight can be read on the balance sheet, by measuring the investment portfolio against total assets:

The spread runs from 1 to more than 6. Three banks draw more than a quarter of their income from their portfolio: Amen Bank, BNA and STB. At BNA and STB, that income comes first from government paper. At Amen Bank, managed funds yield more than Treasury bonds: 35.5% of portfolio income against 31.8%. Attijari Bank, BH Bank and BIAT form a tight group around 23%. ATB and BT sit halfway, around 15%. UBCI and UIB draw most of their income from lending and services.

A point of method for UBCI. It holds a significant share of its government paper in its trading book. The gains go to the financial operations line, not to the investment-portfolio line. With those gains, its weight comes to 18.6% of income. The note's convention leaves financial operations within commercial banking. This precision avoids reading UBCI as a bank without securities.

This weight describes the bank's revenue model, not its profitability. A portfolio of government paper yields a regular income, with no credit-risk provision, and ties up little operating expense. It also makes NBI more sensitive to the path of interest rates and to the State's issuance calendar.

The highest NBI is not always the most commercial.

Fees are the part of net banking income (NBI) least exposed to interest rates: account keeping, payment instruments, cards, foreign trade. The question is what share of operating costs they cover on their own. The note measures net fees (fees received less fees paid) against operating costs (staff costs, general operating expenses, depreciation and amortisation):

The cost-to-income ratio (operating costs against NBI) measures something else: the weight of costs in everything the bank produces, portfolio included. It is computed here the same way for all 10 banks and may differ from the figure a bank publishes. It has no regulatory threshold: it reads in comparison. A bank heavily invested in securities can show a low ratio while covering little of its costs through services. Conversely, UIB has a ratio above 50% and the best coverage by fees: its NBI is almost entirely commercial.

A low cost-to-income ratio says the bank produces a lot; it does not say with what.

Beyond equity, a bank funds its business from three sources: customer deposits, borrowings, and refinancing from the Central Bank and the interbank market. They do not carry the same price. Sight deposits earn little or nothing. Savings, term deposits, certificates and borrowings bear interest. Refinancing is paid at money-market conditions.

The apparent cost of funding starts from the interest paid over the half-year, multiplied by 2 to bring it to a full year. It measures that interest against average third-party funding: the whole balance sheet except equity, at 31 December 2025 and at 30 June 2026. "Apparent", because the measure is broad: it assumes nothing about what each source finances. It remains indicative, like any annualisation of a half-year.

The table sets it against the share of sight deposits, the cheapest resource on the balance sheet:

The relationship is clear. At Attijari Bank, BIAT and UBCI, sight deposits make up close to half of deposits, or more. Their cost of funding is below 4%. The other seven sit between 25% and 35% of sight deposits and between 4.4% and 5.9% of cost.

Two nuances:

1. UIB shows a lower cost of funding than banks with roughly the same share of sight deposits. Savings weigh heavily in its deposit base.
2. Banks that top up their deposits with refinancing from the Central Bank or the money market pay for that top-up at market conditions. That is the case, to varying degrees, for Amen Bank and BNA, at the top of the column.

The advantage of the sight deposit appears in no income line: it reads in interest expense.

The cost of risk (provisions and the result of value adjustments on loans, off-balance-sheet items and liabilities) is usually discussed as an amount. Two ratios make it comparable:

1. Against NBI, it answers an income-statement question: what share of what the bank produced over the half-year went to risk. Followed from one period to the next on the same basis, it also separates a heavy half-year from an established trend. The note computes it with the accounts' own definition, without restatement. It compares it with the restated first half of 2025 where the bank publishes one.
2. Against net customer loans, it answers a balance-sheet question: the pace at which the loan book is being written down. It is computed on the average outstanding over the half-year, annualised:

The ratio falls at six banks, including BNA and STB, and rises at four: ATB, Attijari Bank, BH Bank and UBCI. The levels fall into three tiers: under 10% for four banks, between 10% and 20% for three, above 35% for three. At ATB, the half-year's coverage was estimated by a statistical method, after the migration of the information system. An individual review may revise it: the figure reads with that caveat.

The two measures complement each other. A high cost of risk against NBI can come from a loan book that is being written down fast. It can also come from a modest NBI set against a large loan book. The second ratio settles the question.

The same provision charge asks two questions, and the second cannot be read in the income statement.

Return on equity (ROE) breaks down into two factors. Return on assets (ROA) says what each dinar of balance sheet earns. Leverage says how many dinars of balance sheet the bank carries per dinar of equity. The product of the two gives ROE.

Why averages. Equity as at 30 June is not the equity the bank employed over the half-year. Two effects pull in opposite directions:

1. It already contains the period's result. The profit being measured sits in the denominator, and ROE looks lower than it is.
2. It has lost the dividends, voted in the spring and generally paid before the end of the first half. Those funds were employed for part of the half-year before being paid out: ROE looks higher.

These two effects weigh differently from one bank to the next, depending on what it pays out and when. The note therefore uses average equity at 31 December 2025 and at 30 June 2026. Total assets follow the same rule.

The dividend was paid before 30 June by 8 banks out of 10. ATB and BH Bank did not distribute. The half-year result is annualised, for guidance:

The textbook case of the half-year fits in two lines. BT has the second-highest ROA of the panel, 2.15%, and an ROE of 12.7%. It carries less than 6 dinars of assets per dinar of equity. Attijari Bank has a lower ROA, 1.77%, and an ROE of 22.7%. It carries close to 13. Returns on assets are close, and the ROEs run almost from one to two. Amen Bank has the highest ROA and moderate leverage.

Leverage reads with care. It is an accounting ratio between the balance sheet and equity. It is not the regulatory solvency ratio, which weights assets by their risk: a portfolio of government paper, for instance, weighs little there. High leverage is therefore not, on its own, a sign of fragility. Regulatory solvency is covered bank by bank in the H1 2026 banks note.

ROE says how much; it takes both factors to say how.

Placed end to end, the readings group the banks by the way they produce their net banking income (NBI). They say nothing about what the banks are worth.

A first family funds itself cheaply through sight deposits: Attijari Bank, BIAT and UBCI. Sight deposits make up close to half of deposits or more, and funding costs less than 4%. Leverage runs from 10.0 to 12.8. The cost of risk is low.

A second leans heavily on the securities portfolio: Amen Bank, BNA and STB draw more than a quarter of their income from it. The cost of funding is higher there. Profitability, though, varies a great deal from one bank to the next. The same income does not produce the same result, depending on the cost of risk that comes with it.

A third rests on margin and service: BT and UIB. BT has an average portfolio and the lowest cost-to-income ratio of the panel. UIB has a light portfolio and one of the highest coverage of costs by fees.

ATB and BH Bank sit between two models. Their portfolio is average and their sight deposits stay below 35% of deposits. Above all, the cost of risk weighed on this half-year more than the model did.

Ten banks, not the same business behind the same NBI.

One question remains: if rates were to fall, which component of NBI would move the most: securities income, the margin on sight deposits or fees?