Colombian bank profits through August 2026: almost half belongs to one bank

Between January and August 2026, the 30 banks operating in Colombia earned a combined COP 11.40 trillion. That is the figure the Financial Superintendency published on October 16 in its monthly results report. Over the same period of 2025 they had earned COP 8.27 trillion: 38% more, in nominal pesos.

One bank, almost half

Bancolombia earned COP 5.33 trillion: 47% of the profit of all 30 banks. Adding Davivienda (COP 1.63 trillion), the top two reach 61%. The other 28 share the remaining 39%.

Size is only part of the story. Bancolombia holds 26% of bank assets and takes 47% of the profit: it does not earn more just because it is bigger, it earns more on every peso it manages. In banking, scale works on several fronts at once: a broad deposit base makes funding cheaper, and the fixed costs of technology and branches are spread over more customers.

In August alone, Bancolombia earned COP 598.4 billion. That is more than 24 of the 30 banks earned in the first eight months of the year.

But concentration has been falling

The series for the same period, January-August of each year since 2016, tells a different story. In 2023 Bancolombia had 73% of bank profit and in 2024 70%: in those years the rest of the system earned little. In 2025 it fell to 52%, and today it stands at 47%, the lowest share since 2022.

Nominal pesos. Source: CUIF (2022-2025) and the Superintendency’s monthly report (2026).

The reading is that Bancolombia’s figure did not take off: what changed is that the rest of the banks went back to earning. Between January-August 2025 and 2026, Bancolombia’s profit grew 24% and that of the other 29 banks grew 53%.

Not a record

Although COP 11.40 trillion is the highest figure in the series in nominal pesos, adjusted for inflation it does not beat 2022. That year, January-August added up to COP 11.26 trillion, which in 2025 pesos is COP 13.6 trillion. The dashboard shows the full series, both inflation-adjusted (CPI) and unadjusted.

Who is in negative territory

Four banks have a negative cumulative result through August: Itaú, Banco Pichincha, Bancoomeva and Lulo Bank. At the same cut-off in 2024 there were 12 of 30, and in 2023, 10 of 29. Lulo Bank, a digital bank that began reporting in 2021, has posted a negative January-August result every year since: what one would expect from a bank still building its customer base.

A negative result at a given cut-off describes a bank’s accounting result for that period. It does not measure its soundness, which depends on capital and liquidity, variables this analysis does not assess.

How to read the figures

• They are cumulative profits from January to August, not August alone. A single month’s result is the difference between two cumulative figures, and it can move with provisions, taxes or adjustments booked on that date.
• The 2026 source is the monthly report “Resultados del sistema financiero colombiano, agosto de 2026” (credit institutions annex), which comes out about seven weeks before the same cut-off reaches the CUIF open data. Earlier years come from the CUIF, account 590000. Both sources were checked against each other: July 2026 and August 2025 match for all 30 banks.
• Names are current names. Davibank is the former Scotiabank Colpatria and Ban100 is Bancien. The CUIF uses today’s legal name for earlier years too.
• Amounts are in nominal pesos, except where they are stated as inflation-adjusted (December-to-December CPI, DANE).

All information is public and pertains to legal entities. The dashboard is updated every month, when the Financial Superintendency publishes the new cut-off.