Merchants Bancorp

To the Shareholders, Board of Directors and Audit Committee

Merchants Bancorp

Carmel, Indiana

Opinion on the Consolidated Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Merchants Bancorp (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, shareholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2025, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended December 31, 2025, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”), the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025, based on criteria established in*Internal Control – Integrated Framework: (2013)*issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission and our report dated February 27, 2026, expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

Basis for Opinion

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

We are a public accounting firm registered with the 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 audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud.

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the 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 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 financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matter

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current-period audit of the 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 financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of a critical audit matter does not alter in any way our opinion on the financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates.

Allowance for Credit Losses on Loans

The Company’s loan receivable portfolio totaled $11.0 billion as of December 31, 2025, and the associated allowance for credit losses (ACL) on loans was $83.3 million. As discussed in Notes 1 and 5 to the financial statements, loans receivable is presented net of the ACL to reflect the principal balance expected to be collected over the contractual term of the loans.

The amount of the ACL represents management’s best estimate of current expected life of loan credit losses considering all relevant available information from internal and external sources.

The ACL consists of components for individually-evaluated loans and pooled loans. The Company’s primary portfolio segmentation is by loans with similar risk characteristics. Loan characteristics used in determining the segmentation include the underlying collateral, type or purpose of the loan, and expected credit loss patterns. The initial estimate of expected credit losses for each segment in the pooled loan component is based on historical credit loss experience and management’s judgement. Given the Company’s modest historical credit loss experience, peer and industry data is incorporated into the measurement. Expected life of loan credit losses are quantified using discounted cash flows and remaining life methodologies. Model results are supplemented by qualitative adjustments for risk factors relevant in assessing the expected credit losses within the portfolio segments. These adjustments may increase or decrease the estimate of expected credit losses based upon the assessed level of risk for each qualitative factor.

We identified the ACL, and more specifically the qualitative adjustments, as a critical audit matter. The principal consideration for our determination of the qualitative adjustments as a critical audit matter was the complexity, particularly as it related to qualitative factor framework, and subjectivity in evaluating the qualitative adjustment in total, included in the ACL, and therefore, applying audit procedures required a higher degree of auditor judgment and subjectivity.

How We Addressed the Matter in Our Audit

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

/s/ Forvis Mazars, LLP

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

Indianapolis, Indiana

February 27, 2026