Net interest margin of the banking industry in Europe Q4 2024, by country

The European banking sector showed significant disparities in net interest margins (NIM) during the last quarter 2024. Poland and Hungary topped the rankings with NIMs of 4.6 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively. In contrast, several Western European nations reported markedly lower figures: Germany and Denmark at 1.1 percent, France at 0.9 percent. NIM, a key indicator of bank profitability, measures the difference between interest income earned from lending activities and interest paid to depositors, expressed as a percentage of interest-earning assets.

Profitability and stability

Low profitability has been highlighted several times by the ECB as a key risk to the financial stability of the Euro area. There are several ways to examine profitability in the banking sector, such as the cost-to-income ratio. Prolonged low profitability can have a knock-on effect on an economy’s growth. On the other hand, sustained periods of higher than average profitability can also mean trouble, as was seen in the period running up to the financial crisis.

Other key measures

There are several other metrics that can also be used. Return on equity (ROE), which divides net income by shareholders' equity, looks at how well a company’s management is using its assets to create profits. Another key measure of a bank's profitability is to look at the return on assets (ROA), which divides a bank’s net income by its total assets during a given period.