There are a number of problems facing consumers, including soaring levels of home foreclosures, increasingly risky debt on credit cards, and an unemployment rate that is nearing 10 percent.

“Have you looked at the unemployment rate? That tells the whole story,” says Moshe Orenbuch, an analyst at Credit Suisse. The unemployment is expected to remain in the 10 percent range for 2010, which means that banks could be vulnerable to losses in that market for sometime. And if the employment situation sends the economy into a double-dip recession, the banks could face even bigger losses.

Even at JPMorgan, which reported a larger-than-expected $3.6 billion profit, Orenbuch said in a note to investors that consumer banking results were hit by higher credit costs of $3.8 billion, including a $1.4 billion increase in loan-loss reserves. JPMorgan’s total loan-loss provisions now stand at $31.5 billion.

While reporting a slender $101 million profit, Citigroup said loan losses reached $8 billion in the quarter, down fractionally from $8.4 billion in the second quarter. The bank lost $19 billion in all of 2008 and received a government bailout totaling $45 billion.

Michael Taiano, an analyst at Sandler O’Neil & Partners, says credit cards were a “big drag on earnings” for the large consumer banks. “I think the theme is we’re sort of getting to a peak of charge-off levels. The provisions have started to moderate, and I think we’re getting closer to an inflection point,” Taiano says. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to improve dramatically, but it is getting worse at a slower rate.”

In addition to the big banks, nonbank financial companies also struggled with the recent quarter. GE Capital, a unit of General Electric Co., posted quarterly profits of $263 million, an 87 percent decline compared to last year. GE said delinquency rates on its consumer loans have increased to 4.78 percent, up from 2.7 percent a year ago. Company executives said GE Capital may need a capital infusion of up to $7 billion in 2011.

In a view that applies equally to all the financial-services companies, John Gerspach, Citigroup’s chief financial officer, told analysts Thursday that “the key to recovery will be driven by an improvement in credit in the key North American businesses.”