The banks insisted during the summer of 2008 that they were well capitalized and able to withstand substantial write-downs from the housing market. Although we don't know the exact exposure to the PIIGS it looks to me that it's enough to cause some damage should a haircut occur on some of those bonds. This would explain the very poor performance of the financials over the past 2 months.
2008 JP Morgan
As of June 30, 2008 JPMorgan held $19.5 billion of prime and Alt-A mortgage exposure, $1.9 billion of subprime mortgage exposure, and $11.6 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS)
----for a grand total of $32 Billion
2011 JP Morgan