While investors have become increasingly bearish on the retail sector, banks seem unlikely to face significant losses from their exposures, at least in the near term.

In the latest episode of the Street Talk podcast, we spoke with Raymond James Managing Director Michael Rose about banks' exposure to the retail sector and whether investors' concerns over the issue are warranted.

Members of the investment community asked many banks during their respective second-quarter earnings calls whether the struggles in the retail sector could lead to credit quality issues and slow lending activity. Most bankers, once again, downplayed their direct exposure, though disclosures have not been uniform across the industry. Rose said there is some merit to bankers' position, but he also cautioned that the ultimate impact of numerous bankruptcies and store closings among national retailers will play out over the next few years, not the next few months.

"It's too early to draw any overarching conclusions but there are certainly some signs that are troubling," Rose said. "The banks have been a little bit slower to disclose information than investors would like."

Concerns among investors have followed continued problems in the retail sector, with the number of bankruptcies this year on pace to the reach the highest level since 2011, when the impacts of the Great Recession were still felt across the U.S. economy. Changes in shopping habits, with a greater portion of sales moving to e-commerce platforms over the last decade, have weighed on retail sales. The market has taken notice and punished large retailer stocks, while keeping a watchful eye for the risk of contagion spreading to the banks' loan portfolios.

Investors seem most focused on the possibility that problems in the retail space spur losses in banks' commercial real estate portfolios. Commercial loans that banks generally make to retailers, meanwhile, likely are lower on the risk spectrum, Rose said, since they are typically secured by inventory and receivables.

Should problems arise for banks, Rose believes they will be market specific, noting that areas experiencing considerable population growth like Florida and Texas will require more traditional retail services such as grocery stores, pizza places and barber shops. He further noted that not all retail exposures are created equal and expressed greater concern over commercial real estate loans tied to large malls. If tenants vacate portions of those structures, re-purposing the space would prove more challenging than at smaller locations with less square footage, he said.

"Unlike what unfolded with the energy sector when the price of oil fell very rapidly and had very quick impacts to those exposed, we see the retail industry and what will happen to commercial real estate across the various different asset classes to be much slower moving in general," Rose said. "[W]e would caution folks to not take a broad brush approach to all aspects of commercial real estate."