KBC Group: Third-quarter result of 1 142 million euros

* Unfloored fully loaded common equity ratio: account taken of the total impact of Basel IV on risk-weighted assets, excluding the output floor impact.

See full press release in attachment

Johan Thijs, Chief Executive Officer KBC Group:

We recorded an excellent net profit of 1 142 million euros in the third quarter of 2026. Compared to the previous quarter, our total income benefitted from higher insurance revenues, net fee and commission income, trading and fair value income, and net interest income (excluding the significantly lower net interest income on inflation-linked bonds). Net other income, on the other hand, was down, as was dividend income, following its seasonal peak in the second quarter. Our loan portfolio grew organically by 2% quarter-on-quarter and by as much as 7% year-on-year. Hence, year-to-date, organic loan growth has already surpassed our guidance for full-year 2026. Customer deposits – excluding volatile, low-margin short-term deposits at KBC Bank’s foreign branches – fell organically by 1% quarter-on-quarter due to seasonality, retail government bond issues and shifts towards asset management products, but rose by 3% year-on-year. Disregarding bank and insurance taxes, operating expenses were up 3% quarter-on-quarter, but on a year-to-date and like-for-like basis (disregarding forex effects, the recent acquisitions and the exceptional bonus paid to staff), they remained perfectly in line with our full-year 2026 guidance. Insurance service expenses after reinsurance were up quarter-on-quarter, while total impairment charges were largely in line with the level recorded in the previous quarter, with the decrease in non-loan related impairment more or less offsetting the increase in loan loss impairment. Compared to year-end 2025, our year-to-date credit cost ratio improved to 12 basis points in the first nine months of 2026 when the reserve for geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties and the recent acquisition of 365.bank are excluded.

Consequently, when adding up the results for the first three quarters of the year, our year-to-date net profit amounted to 2 851 million euros, up 11% on the year-earlier figure.

Our solvency position remained strong, with an unfloored fully loaded common equity ratio under Basel IV of 14.6% at the end of September 2026. Our liquidity position remained very solid too, as illustrated by an LCR of 157% and an NSFR of 131%. In line with our dividend policy, we paid out an interim dividend of 1 euro last week as an advance on the total dividend for financial year 2026.

Kate, our digital assistant, has already reached 6.4 million customers across our core countries and is at the centre of our digital innovation strategy, playing a pivotal role in delivering faster, smarter and more personal services to our customers. Kate now solves more than 75% of customer questions fully autonomously and also plays an increasingly important role in our ecosphere approach. These ecospheres allow customers to retrieve useful information, obtain guidance and support and run simulations for, for instance, mobility and housing-related matters, while the digital interaction with the customer provides useful leads for KBC to reach out and set up a further dialogue. To date, our ‘MyMobility’ ecosphere has already onboarded approximately 450 000 customers in Belgium and the Czech Republic, while close to 90 000 customers in Belgium have already been onboarded to the ‘MyHome’ ecosphere. Our successful focus on innovation and customer convenience is also reflected in the external recognition we receive. We are, for instance, very proud that KBC Mobile has been named the world's best mobile banking app for the third year in a row by independent research firm Sia.

We repeat that, to provide additional insight into our digital journey, we will extend the usual conference call regarding the fourth-quarter and full-year results for 2026 on Thursday 11 February 2027 with a topical event on the digital transformation of our group, leading to new financial and non-financial guidance.

I’d like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all our employees for their contribution to our group’s continued success. I also wish to thank all our customers, shareholders and all other stakeholders for their trust and support, and to assure them that we remain committed to being the reference in bank-insurance and innovation in all our core markets.

* This news item contains information that is subject to the transparency regulations for listed companies.