CF BANKSHARES INC

Shareholders, Board of Directorsand Audit Committee

CF Bankshares Inc.

Columbus, Ohio

Opinion on the Consolidated Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of CF Bankshares Inc. (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, changes in stockholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2023, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2023, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

Change in Accounting Principle

As discussed in Notes 1 and 4 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company changed its method of accounting for credit losses on financial instruments due to the adoption of Accounting Standards Codification Topic 326: Financial Instruments – Credit Losses.

Basis for Opinion

These consolidated financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s consolidated financial statements based on our audits.

We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audits, we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures include examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

Critical Audit Matter

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current-period audit of the consolidated financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the consolidated financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of the critical audit matter does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

As described in Notes 1 and 4 to the consolidated financial statements and referred to in the change in accounting principle explanatory paragraph above, the Company adopted ASC 326 as of January 1, 2023, which among other things, required the Company to recognize expected credit losses over the contractual lives of financial assets carried at amortized costs, including loans receivables, utilizing the Current Expected Credit Losses (“CECL”) methodology. As of December 31, 2023, the allowance for credit losses (ACL) balance was $18.2 million. Estimates of expected credit losses are based on relevant information about current conditions, past events, and reasonable and supportable forward-looking forecasts regarding collectability of the reported amounts. The Company utilized an average charge-off method derived from historical data to construct a loss rate for each identified loan segment. Due to the Company’s loss history not being sufficient and relevant enough to predict future losses, the Company also utilized peer data from a peer group. The loss rates are then adjusted, for reasonable and supportable forecasts of relevant economic indicators as well as other environmental factors based on the risks present for each portfolio segment. The environmental factors (“qualitative adjustments”) include consideration of economic conditions and portfolio trends.

How We Addressed the Matter in Our Audit

The primary procedures we performed to address this critical audit matter included:

Obtained an understanding of the Company’s process for establishing the ACL, including the selection of models and the qualitative factor adjustments of the ACL.

Tested clerical and computational accuracy of the formulas within the calculation.

Tested completeness and accuracy of the information and reports utilized in the ACL.

Performed reviews of individual credit files to evaluate the reasonableness of loan credit risk ratings.

Evaluated the qualitative adjustments to the ACL including assessing the basis for adjustments and the reasonableness of the significant assumptions.

Evaluated the reserve generated for unfunded commitments and tested the completeness and accuracy of the information utilized.

Evaluated the forecast adjustment, including assessing that it is reasonable and supportable.

Tested the reasonableness of specific reserves on individually reviewed loans.

Evaluated credit quality trends in delinquencies, non-accruals, charge-offs, and loan risk ratings.

/s/ FORVIS, LLP

FORVIS, LLP

We have served as the Company's auditor since 2014.

Indianapolis, Indiana

March 28, 2024

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

December 31, 2023 and 2022