When will we see a buying opportunity for banks?
Battered and bruised banks are sending Europe's markets into meltdown. However despite the turmoil, analysts believe there are some pockets of value.
"In time there will be (a buying opportunity for banks), I can't say it's going to be in the next week or next month; but on a six to 12 months perspective? Yes," Bill O'Neill, head of UK investment office at UBS, told CNBC Thursday.
While concerns are escalating over banks' ability to handle low growth and low interest rates, O'Neill said a "deafening, harrowing scream" around banks' balance sheets was not happening.
Despite this, Europe's STOXX 600 banking index traded at multi-year lows on Thursday, hitting levels not seen since August 2012, as mixed earnings and fears over the sector's stability continued to brew.
In particular, concerns of bad loan portfolios have struck Italian banks the hardest, after the European Central Bank recently asked for data on their portfolios.
Banor Capital's portfolio manager, Francesco Castelli however said he didn't buy into the belief that the country's banking system was heading for a mass default.
"(One) side of the market is doing projections that the whole Italian (banking) system will go bust because they will be forced to sell loans on a far-sell price, which is quite unrealistic," Castelli told CNBC Tuesday.
"Certainly there might be banks that will need further capital increase — which will be painful for the shareholders — however, we don't buy the story that the Italian system is heading for a mass default, so we see a lot of investment opportunities here."
Some may see Societe Generale providing value in the short term.
"I was looking at banks like Societe Generale, because the P/E (price to earnings ratio) is almost the same as the dividend yield. The P/E is under seven, the dividend yield is seven. So actually that is incredibly rare to see something like that," Edmund Shing, global head of equity derivative strategy at BNP Paribas, told CNBC Wednesday.
"So if you believe that a bank like SocGen will maintain that dividend payout, you're going to get 7 percent."
"Seven percent is enormous right now. Of course there's risk and a lot of volatility, but I think a good, patient value investor should be taking advantage of that in the short term," he added.
Even leading lenders are looking at ways of soothing the nerves of both shareholders and the markets.
John Cryan, Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank said on Tuesday that the lender was "absolutely rock-solid", with a Financial Times report this week suggesting that the bank was considering a multi-billion euro bond buyback, which would in turn ease concerns surrounding the bank's funds.
Intesa Sanpaolo's CEO, Carlo Messina told CNBC Monday that there was too much panic in the market currently and actually it provided a "unique buying opportunity" when looking at European banks.
With nerves still high over the health of banks, global economic growth and what the European and U.S. central banks could deliver, analysts suggest what the market really needs is a confidence boost.
"The economy is doing quite well and has been more resilient to these shocks in the last couple of years than the markets actually give them credit," Lothar Mentel, Tatton Investment Management CEO & CIO, told CNBC Wednesday.
"The markets are very nervous and on edge, because they know that they are lacking confidence; and what they're lacking in confidence has been made up by quantitative easing (QE). QE is now on the way out because the economy is doing better and it's not needed anymore, therefore we're having a big market jitter," Mentel added.
"I think we're going to need confidence building measures here, of an order where the market again has some confidence about the sustainability of growth," said O'Neill.