Investors are still waiting for a catalyst to coax the European stock market out of its narrowest trading range in 20 years.
Indices remain at the mercy of strong cross currents, with steady corporate earnings and attractive valuations a positive, but with downward pressure from record high crude oil prices and doubts the US economic recovery has legs.
The banking sector accounts for about 20 percent of the European stock market and solid results would help the FTSE Eurotop 300 index from revisiting Monday's lowest close of the year.
But on Friday Deutsche Bank reported a 30 percent drop in quarterly profits due to dwindling trading income, and analysts said peers may suffer a similar fate this week.
Banks handing in their scorecards include HSBC, BNP Paribas, and ABN Amro on Monday, Royal Bank of Scotland on Tuesday, Commerzbank, and Credit Suisse on Wednesday, with Barclays and HVB Group on Thursday.
Banks had hoped that cost cuts in 2002 and 2003 would have left them in good shape to exploit an upturn in the economy, but revenues face pressures.
"There is still quite a bit of uncertainty about second half direction of revenues in particular, which is why the shares have been performing so poorly," Brown said.
The DJ Stoxx European banking sector index is down nearly 2 percent for the year, lagging the broader stock market's 3 percent rise.
Elsewhere in financials, insurer Aviva is due to report on Wednesday, with bancassurer ING on Thursday and results from Munich Re and Axa on Friday.
The health of the airline and auto industry will also feature this week with first quarter earnings from BAA, the UK airports operator on Monday, while British Airways publishes July traffic figures on Wednesday.
Rivals Air France-KLM, Scandinavia's SAS, and easyJet post their July traffic data on Friday.
Investors in European car makers will take a close look at the US car sales figures for July, due on Tuesday, to see how the likes of BMW or Volkswagen are faring.
BMW will report quarterly earnings on the following day. Germantyre maker Continental reports on Monday.
Elsewhere on the results front, oil companies Statoil and Total report on Monday and Thursday, respectively.