Kearny Financial Corp.

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

Shareholders and the Board of Directors of

Kearny Financial Corp. and Subsidiaries

Fairfield, New Jersey

Opinions on the Financial Statements and Internal Control over Financial Reporting

We have audited the accompanying consolidated statements of financial condition of Kearny Financial Corp. and Subsidiaries (the "Company") as of June 30, 2025 and 2024, the related consolidated statements of income (loss), comprehensive income (loss), changes in stockholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended June 30, 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 June 30, 2025, based on criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework: (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of June 30, 2025 and 2024, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the years in the three-year period ended June 30, 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 June 30, 2025, based on criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework: (2013) issued by COSO.

Basis for Opinions

The Company’s management is responsible for these 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 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 included 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.

Definition 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 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 – Qualitative Factors: As described in Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company accounts for credit losses under ASC 326, Financial Instruments – Credit Losses. ASC 326 requires the measurement of expected lifetime credit losses for financial assets measured at amortized cost at the reporting date. As of June 30, 2025, the balance of the allowance for credit losses on loans was $46.2 million.

Management employs a process and methodology to estimate the allowance for credit losses (“ACL”) on loans that evaluates both quantitative and qualitative factors. The methodology for evaluating quantitative factors involves pooling loans into portfolio segments for loans that share similar risk characteristics. Pooled loan portfolio segments include multi-family, nonresidential mortgage, commercial business, construction, one-to-four family residential mortgage, home equity and consumer loans.

For pooled loans, the Company primarily utilizes a discounted cash flow (“DCF”) methodology to estimate credit losses over the expected life of the loan. The DCF methodology combines the probability of default, the loss given default, remaining life of the loan and prepayment and curtailment speed assumptions to estimate a reserve for each loan. The loss rates are adjusted by current and forecasted macroeconomic assumptions and return to the mean after the forecasted periods. These quantitative factors are supplemented by qualitative factors reflecting management’s view of how losses may vary from those represented by quantitative loss rates. Qualitative factors are applied to each portfolio segment with the amounts determined by correlation of credit stress to the maximum loss factors of a peer group’s historical charge-offs. Changes in these assumptions could have a material effect on the Company’s financial results.

We identified auditing the qualitative component of the ACL on pooled loans in the multi-family, nonresidential mortgage, and one-to-four family residential mortgage loan segments as a critical audit matter because the methodology to determine the estimate of credit losses uses subjective judgments by management and is subject to material variability. Performing audit procedures to evaluate the qualitative factors on the multi-family, nonresidential mortgage, and one-to-four family residential mortgage loan segments involved a high degree of auditor judgment and required significant effort, including the need to involve more experienced audit personnel including the use of internal specialists.

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

•Testing the effectiveness of controls over the evaluation of the ACL on pooled loans, including controls addressing:

◦Methodology and accounting policies.

◦Data inputs, judgments and calculations used to determine the qualitative factors.

◦Information technology general controls and application controls.

◦Management’s review of the qualitative factors.

•Substantively testing management’s process, including evaluating their judgments and assumptions, for developing the ACL on loans collectively evaluated for impairment, which included:

◦Evaluation of the appropriateness of the Company’s methodology and accounting policies involved in the application of ASC 326.

◦Testing the mathematical accuracy of the calculation.

◦Testing the completeness and accuracy of data used in the calculation including utilizing internal specialists to assist in testing the accuracy of the underlying peer data used to develop the maximum loss factors.

◦Evaluation of the reasonableness of management’s judgments related to qualitative factors to determine if they are calculated to conform with management’s policies and were consistently applied period over period. Our evaluation considered evidence from internal and external sources and loan portfolio composition and performance.

Goodwill Impairment: As described in Notes 1 and 8 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company’s consolidated goodwill balance was $113.5 million as of June 30, 2025, which is allocated to the Company’s single reporting unit. Goodwill is tested for impairment at the reporting unit level at least annually, or more frequently if events or circumstances change that would more likely than not reduce the fair value of a reporting unit below its carrying amount. The Company performed its annual quantitative assessment of goodwill during the fourth quarter of its fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. The annual quantitative assessment of goodwill for the Company’s single reporting unit was performed utilizing a discounted cash flow analysis (“income approach”) and estimates of selected market information (“market approaches”). The result of the income approach was weighted at 70% and the results of the market approaches comprised the remaining 30% in determining the fair value of the Company’s single reporting unit. The fair value of the Company’s single reporting unit exceeded the reporting unit’s carrying value, resulting in no goodwill impairment for the year ended June 30, 2025.

The goodwill impairment assessment involves significant estimates and subjective assumptions which require a high degree of management judgment.

We identified the goodwill impairment assessment of the Company as a critical audit matter. The principal considerations for this determination were the degree of auditor judgment in performing procedures over the key assumptions, which include discount rate, cost savings rate, expected future cash flows, and control premium.

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

•Testing the effectiveness of controls over the valuation methodologies, assumptions and data used to estimate the fair value of the Company, including controls addressing:

◦Management’s review of the reasonableness and accuracy of the Company’s expected future cash flows used in the income approach.

◦Management’s evaluation of assumptions and inputs used, including discount rate, cost savings rate, control premium, and comparable companies data used to determine fair value.

◦Completeness and accuracy of key financial data used in the assessment.

•Substantively testing management’s estimate, for estimating the fair value of the Company, which included:

◦Testing of key financial data for completeness and accuracy.

◦Evaluation of management’s ability to reasonably forecast cash flows.

◦Utilization of an internal specialist to evaluate appropriateness of valuation methodologies, the discount rate assumption, cost savings rate, control premium, comparable companies data, and overall reasonableness of the fair value.

/s/ Crowe LLP

We have served as the Company's auditor since 2017.

Livingston, New Jersey

August 21, 2025