摘要：The prof itability of EU-252 banks improved
further in 2004 (see Chart 1), consolidating
the recovery that began in the previous year.
The main drivers of the strengthening of banks’
profitability continued to be reductions in the
flows of provisions and growth in lending to
households, mostly for housing purposes.
These trends continued in the first half of 2005,
although the introduction of International
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) clouds
the comparison with data from the previous
years (see Box 1).
