New research from Forrester based on a survey of 17 vendors of globally deployed banking platforms on their 2008 sales, identified Oracle and Temenos as the market's big beasts, scooping up more than 100 deals between them.

Of the chasing pack, SunGard "enjoyed significant success", capturing 16 new clients in 2008, attaining parity with old-hands such as Infosys. Both Infosys and SAP "lost" counted new named deals compared with their 2007 numbers, while TCS FS was able to stabilise its 2008 deal numbers on its 2007 level, with 28 new scalps.

Lower down the scale, survey newcomer Nucleus enjoyed 16 counted deals in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa, and is ranked as one to watch.

The ongoing economic crisis is likely to accelerate an emergent trend towards consolidation among core banking tech vendors says Forrester. As the stragglers are picked off by the dominant players, the big are likely to get bigger and a smaller number of banking platform vendors will start to dominate the market even more than the top ones do today.

As such, it will be more important than ever before for banks to scrutinise the viability of banking platform vendors and their product lines in terms of regional and global success as well as product road maps, says Forrester.

"Even a generally successful vendor may abandon less-successful products and services - or may get acquired," says the analyst house.