By Aby Agina
Co-operative Bank of Kenya has been recognized among the world’s top-performing banks in Forbes’ inaugural global ranking, placing the lender’s financial performance, resilience and balance-sheet discipline under an international lens.
The ranking, published Sept. 9, evaluates 500 banks across 89 countries using financial data rather than customer surveys, measuring lenders on profitability, growth and earnings quality, capital and funding resilience, and asset quality and efficiency.
For Co-op Bank, the recognition provides a global benchmark for a lender that has built its business around Kenya’s cooperative movement while expanding its retail, corporate and digital banking operations.
Forbes and research partner Statista assessed eligible banks across four dimensions. Profitability carried the largest weighting at 30%, while growth and earnings quality accounted for 20 percent. Capital and funding resilience and asset quality and efficiency each carried 25 percent.
The methodology gives particular weight to measures including return on average assets, cost-to-income ratio and net interest margin when assessing profitability. Growth was evaluated through earnings performance and stability as well as customer-deposit growth over three years, while capital resilience considered measures such as equity ratios and loan-to-deposit ratios. Asset quality incorporated credit quality, risk management and balance-sheet resilience.
The approach means Co-op Bank’s inclusion reflects more than a single year of earnings. The analysis was designed to identify lenders that can combine profitability with sustained growth, adequate funding and capital buffers, and sound management of credit and balance-sheet risks.
Forbes required participating banks to have more than $3 billion in assets, publish audited financial statements for the latest fully available fiscal year and provide at least three consecutive years of financial data. Banks were then divided into six asset-size tiers before their scores were calculated, allowing institutions to be compared with peers of similar scale.
That distinction is important for Co-op Bank, whose business is closely linked to Kenya’s domestic economy and the country’s large cooperative sector. The bank was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Nairobi, according to Forbes. Its Chief Executive is Gideon Maina Muriuki and it has about 6,235 employees.
The Forbes recognition comes as African banks increasingly seek to demonstrate that growth can be sustained without sacrificing balance-sheet strength. For lenders operating in markets exposed to currency volatility, changing interest rates and uneven economic growth, profitability alone is a limited measure of performance.
Forbes’ methodology instead places profitability alongside the durability of earnings, funding structures and asset quality.
The global ranking was led by Singaporean lenders OCBC Bank and DBS Group among banks with more than $500 billion in assets. CBZ Bank of Zimbabwe topped the large-bank category, while Alinma Bank of Saudi Arabia led the upper mid-size tier. Sofi topped the mid-size category and AUB Asia United Bank of the Philippines ranked first among small banks.
Forbes said global banking-sector net income rose 7 percent between 2024 and 2025 to $1.3 trillion, citing McKinsey & Co., underscoring the broader improvement in industry profitability against a changing global economic backdrop.
For Co-op Bank, the significance of the ranking therefore extends beyond the Forbes label. It places the Kenyan lender within a global framework that measures whether banks are producing returns efficiently, growing their earnings and deposits consistently, maintaining resilient funding and capital structures, and controlling risks in their loan books.
The recognition also highlights the evolution of Kenya’s banking industry, where domestic lenders increasingly compete not only on branch networks and customer reach but on efficiency, digital capabilities, capital strength and the quality of earnings.
About the Author: Aby Agina is a former CNBC journalist with extensive experience covering business, finance and economic affairs
