KCB Group has been named among the world’s top-performing banks in the inaugural Forbes World’s Top Performing Banks 2026 ranking, giving Kenya one of the 500 spots on a new global benchmark focused on banks’ financial performance rather than customer perception.
The ranking, published by Forbes in partnership with Statista, covers banks across 89 countries and evaluates them using financial data across four areas: profitability, growth and earnings quality, capital and funding resilience, and asset quality and efficiency.
Forbes weighted profitability at 30% of the assessment, growth and earnings quality at 20%, and capital and funding resilience and asset quality and efficiency at 25% each.
The methodology considers indicators including return on average assets, cost-to-income ratio, net interest margin, earnings and deposit growth, equity ratios, loan-to-deposit ratios, credit quality and balance-sheet resilience.
Unlike Forbes’ World’s Best Banks ranking, which is based largely on surveys of bank customers, the new ranking uses objective financial information from sources including S&P Capital IQ, desk research and data submitted by banks.
Forbes also grouped qualifying banks into six asset-size tiers before calculating their scores. The groups range from banks with more than $500 billion in assets to smaller institutions with between $3 billion and $10 billion.
KCB Group, which is headquartered in Nairobi, reported KSh68.4 billion in net profit for 2025, while its latest investor information puts its total asset base at about KSh2.3 trillion. The group operates KCB Bank Kenya alongside regional banking subsidiaries and other financial-services businesses.
The Forbes ranking comes as KCB continues to operate at a scale that makes it one of East Africa’s largest financial institutions. Its balance sheet includes about KSh1.2 trillion in net loans and advances and KSh1.7 trillion in customer deposits, according to the group’s investor-relations information.
Forbes said the global banking industry recorded a 7% increase in net income between 2024 and 2025, reaching $1.3 trillion, citing McKinsey & Company.
The strongest performers in the largest asset category included Singapore’s OCBC Bank and DBS Group, which took the first and second positions respectively. Zimbabwe’s CBZ Bank led the $100 billion-to-$500 billion category, while Saudi Arabia’s Alinma topped the $50 billion-to-$100 billion group.
KCB’s inclusion places a Kenyan banking group in a ranking designed to compare institutions on the underlying strength and quality of their financial performance.
The distinction is significant because Forbes did not select the 500 banks simply on the basis of size. Banks first had to meet eligibility requirements, including having more than $3 billion in assets, publishing audited financial statements and providing at least three consecutive years of financial data.
The ranking therefore provides another international reference point for KCB as the group expands its regional banking operations and competes for customers, deposits and corporate business across East Africa.
Forbes said companies do not pay to participate or be selected for its lists.