Profitability of banks is manifested by the fact that bank during the business is making income or increasing their profit rate. At the measuring bank performance, three groups of indicators are being used, and those are: usual (traditional), contemporary (economic) and market indicators. In the most important traditional i.e. accounting indicators are return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). By the analysis are determined the causes of weakness of ROA and ROE in the assesment of quality of the bank in the long term. The factors that have restricting effect on ROA indicator are cost of risk, decrease of net interest margin, fall in the average interest income, cost efficiency and expenses on value adjustments and provisions. ROE indicator is most influnced by negative pre-tax profit margin., reduced profitability, operating margin, financial leverage. Via historical data in empyrical analysis of croatian banking system and at the examples of certain banks is noticed slight fall of all indicators during the financial crisis, but later is seen slight increase after recoverment and growth of the economy. That can be seen from the display of ROA and ROE indicators during the time of observation. It should be pointed out that the various indicators, ratios and "relations" (ratios) are helping management of the banks in order to react on time on external and internal factors that can weaken performances of the bank operations.