REPUBLIC BANCORP INC /KY/

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Republic Bancorp, Inc.

Opinion on the Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, stockholders’ equity, and cash flows for the year ended December 31, 2023 of Republic Bancorp, Inc. (the “Company”), and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the results of the Company’s operations and its cash flows for the year ended December 31, 2023, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

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 audit. 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 audit 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 financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audit 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 included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audit 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 audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.

/s/Crowe LLP

We served as the Company’s auditor from 1996, through the filing of the 2023 Form 10-K, which was filed on March 14, 2024.

March 14, 2024, except for Note 24, as to which the date is March 6, 2025

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

Stockholders, Board of Directors, and Audit Committee

Republic Bancorp, Inc.

Opinions on the Consolidated Financial Statements and Internal Control over Financial Reporting

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheet of Republic Bancorp, Inc. (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the related consolidated statements of income, comprehensive income, stockholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the years in the two-year period ended December 31, 2025, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). We also have audited the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025, based on criteria established inInternal Control—Integrated Framework: (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

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, 2025 and 2024, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the years in the two-year period ended December 31, 2025, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. Also, in our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025, based on criteria established inInternal Control—Integrated Framework: (2013) issued by COSO.

Basis for Opinion

The Company’s management is responsible for these consolidated financial statements, for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in the accompanying Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements and an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting 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 audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud, and whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects.

Our audits of the financial statements 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. Our audit of internal control over financial reporting included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, and testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

Definitions and Limitations of Internal Control over Financial Reporting

A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of reliable financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

Critical Audit Matters

The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current-period audit of the financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters 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 matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

Allowance for Credit Losses on loans

The Company’s loan portfolio totaled $5.4 billion and the associated allowance for credit losses on loans (ACLL) was $85.4 million at December 31, 2025. As more fully described in Notes 1 and 4 to the consolidated financial statements, the ACLL under Accounting Standards Codification 326 requires the measurement of expected lifetime credit losses on a collective or pooled basis when similar risk characteristics exist. For each of its loan pools, the Company uses a “static-pool” method, which analyzes historical closed pools of similar loans over their expected lives to attain a loss rate. For the core bank to reflect risks not fully captured in the “static-pool” methodology, qualitative adjustments are made to the historical loss rate for current conditions and reasonable and supportable forecasts. One-year forecast adjustments to the historical loss rate are based on U.S. national unemployment rate and commercial real estate values. Subsequent to the one-year forecast, loss rates are assumed to immediately revert back to long-term historical averages.

We identified the qualitative factor framework applied in the core bank segment, specifically as it relates to management’s judgment in evaluating the past-due, nonperforming and classified loans, collateral values, and other environmental factors qualitative adjustments (referred to in the procedures described below as “the adjustments”) as a critical audit matter. The principal considerations for our determination included the high degree of auditor judgment and subjectivity involved in evaluating management’s assessment of the adjustments, including the directional impact and magnitude of those adjustments.

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

/s/Forvis Mazars, LLP

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2024.

Louisville, Kentucky

March 6, 2026