Australia and Canada have many things in common: Both are members of the Commonwealth. Both have very consolidated banking industries. In Australia this is enshrined in the four pillars policy. In Canada, the top five banks control about 95% of all deposits. For more information, see the upcoming Celent report Too Big to Bail: Banking in the Developed World. Both industries have weathered the crisis much better than their American and European counterparts. In Australia there has been a wave of core banking announcements: National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia are moving to SAP. Westpac with St. George is moving in this area as well. Canadians are looking to Australia and wondering whether the time has come for them to move as well. While the Australian and Canadian markets are similar to the US market, this in and of itself will not trigger a wave of core banking migrations in the United States. On the other hand, there are rumors of two large US banks, both foreign owned, that are going to be moving to modern, real-time, core systems. Assuming that these deals go forward and implementations are successful, that will be the big trigger in the US. Note that I said assuming. People’s Bank was moving to a new core system and pulled the plug on that migration in mid-stream. If things do go well, these more agile banks will be able to offer new services more quickly and the business side at competitive banks will find it necessary to fund core modernizations or migrations to remain in the game. That’s when things get very interesting…..