It's a cliché that securitization and derivatives allow for risk to be offloaded. When it comes to the top banks, it hasn't rung true. Standard & Poor's argues that some banks in fact may now be carrying more credit risk than before because of their exposure to credit default swaps, syndicated loans and securitized assets. Financial Week notes that Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan held nearly 90 percent of all derivatives among commercial banks. And all three have boosted their credit exposure over the past five years. JPMorgan has nearly $8 of credit exposure for every $1 of capital. Making all this worse is the flood of bridge loan exposure that banks have taken. The asset-backed commercial paper market also looms as another reason to worry. It's possible that earnings could be pared.  

For more:
- here's the Financial Week article