We give sufficient conditions that allow contractible (resp., reflexive amenable) Banach algebras to be finite-dimensional and semisimple algebras. Moreover, we show that any contractible (resp., reflexive amenable) Banach algebra in which every maximal left ideal has a Banach space complement is indeed a direct sum of finitely many full matrix algebras. Finally, we characterize Hermitian * -algebras that are contractible.