(Yicai Global) Oct. 24 -- The number of banks in the eurozone has decreased by 25 percent to 5,073 since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed bankruptcy in September 2008, per a report on the region's financial structure that the European Central Bank released yesterday in Frankfurt.

Some 36,900 bank branches, accounting for one fifth of the branches in the eurozone, closed during the period, and 7,000 shut their doors last year alone.

Spain closed the largest number of bank outlets, while Germany, France and Italy adopted measures to cut capacity.

Banks in the eurozone had USD28.4 trillion (EUR24.2 trillion) in assets by the end of last year, an increase of 0.5 percent over the previous year and a decrease of 14 percent from 2008.