Tunisian listed
banks: H1 2026

For ATB, the change in net income is not meaningful (n.m.): it moves from a 2.6 MDT profit in H1 2025 to a 27.6 MDT loss.

The loans/deposits ratio varies widely from one bank to another: around 57% at BIAT and Attijari Bank, versus close to 97% at BT 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, BT and UBCI sit between 94% and 97%. 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 deposits grow noticeably over 6 months, which eases the pressure: an in-between position, not a warning signal.

UIB sits between these groups.

BH Bank exceeds 100% on the published financial statements. 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. Deposits nonetheless grow faster than loans (+1.8% against +0.3% over 6 months), gradually easing that tension.

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

NBI growth is very different from one bank to another, and so is its composition.

At Amen Bank, NBI is up 17.7%. The securities book plays a large part: 28.2% of banking operating income. Growth is solid, but customer-driven revenue needs to be read separately from securities and investment income.

BNA takes this further: 32.0% of its banking operating income comes from the securities book. Net income rises noticeably while the loan book has barely moved since December.

At Attijari Bank, lending is down over 6 months while deposits keep flowing in: the surplus goes to 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 compared with H1 2025.

BT 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 over 6 months.

Finally, at STB, balance-sheet volumes grow over 6 months 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 BT 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 and profit both improve, without anything sharp enough to change the read on the half.

UBCI is a different story. NBI and loans grow noticeably, deposits by 9.2% over 6 months, 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.

At ATB, net banking income grows by 9.2%, but the cost-to-income ratio reaches 74.3% and the cost of risk turns the half into a loss (−27.6 MDT).

At BH Bank, the cost-to-income ratio is 47.2%; the half turns on the cost of risk, which absorbs most of operating income.

At STB, the cost-to-income ratio deteriorates noticeably, from 50% in H1 2025 to 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 over the half, from 69.14% to 72.21%^*. The cost of risk increases in value but remains absorbed by the solid growth in revenue and net income. The profile remains solid, though not without a point to watch.

At BT, the classified-exposure ratio, up slightly since end-2025, stands at 6.49%^*, and coverage rises from 82.95% to 85.69%. That high level of coverage offsets the move in the ratio.

At Attijari Bank, classified loans rise by 7.1% over the half and the cost of risk goes from 13.2 to 22.0 MDT, i.e. 5.9% of NBI. 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 17.9 MDT 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 over one year, from 22.51% to 21.59%, and lifts its coverage from 56.43% to 59.35%. The direction is right; the stock is still high enough to warrant vigilance.

At UBCI, the cost of risk rises markedly: 11.3 MDT against 6.1 MDT in H1 2025. The classified-loan ratio, however, is broadly flat over the half, at 5.1%. Coverage is close to 74%.

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.

At ATB, net provisions on loans rise from 32.7 to 68.6 MDT; after migrating its information system, the bank estimated coverage with a statistical method, which a loan-by-loan review may revise. At BH Bank, net provisions on loans rise by 83.9%, to 146.7 MDT: risk becomes the half’s watch point.

For STB, 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 UIB, neither the financial statements nor an annual report published with the CMF give a capital ratio (no 2025 annual report): the cell remains empty. For ATB, the total ratio comes from the 2025 annual report, written in Arabic (page 21); Tier 1 is not published there.

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, BT, BH Bank, BIAT, STB and UBCI 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 fast NBI growth does not guarantee a better conversion into profit.

3 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.

The capital ratios of ATB and UIB also illustrate a discipline of method: absent a documented recent ratio, the cells remain visibly missing. They are neither guessed nor replaced by an estimate.