LONDONFRANKFURTMADRID, April 22 Reuters Investors should get a clearer picture this week of whether higher interest rates are still boosting European bank profits or if a yearlong share price rally will run out of steam.

Britain39;s Lloyds Banking Group is the first of the big European lenders to report its first quarter earnings on April 24, before BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Barclays publish theirs the following day.

After years of low interest rates, a surge in borrowing costs has been a game changer for bank profits in Europe, whose shares have soared on the resulting shareholder payouts.

What is fundamentally different is that we are out of negative rates. That has had a fundamental impact on the outlook for banks and it still does, said Christian Edelman, CoHead of Europe at consulting group Oliver Wyman.

The full picture will not become clear immediately as European bank earnings stretch over several weeks, with Spain39;s BBVA and Santander reporting at the end of April and France39;s Societe Generale and Switzerland39;s UBS in the first week of May.

Earnings last week from Finland39;s Nordea and Spain39;s Bankinter signal that earnings growth is holding up well, despite expectations that the European Central Bank ECB will cut rates in June.

But Oliver Wyman39;s Edelman cautioned that falling margins and weak loan demand were causes for concern.

JP Morgan analysts admitted last week their caution on European banks had not been the right decision, with a…