About half of parent TD Bank Financial Group's 1,075 branches on the East Coast have two computer systems that can't talk to each other. It creates difficulties for those who make a deposit. Those two computer systems exist because the Toronto company bought Commerce Bancorp Inc., of Cherry Hill, N.J., in March, but won't fully integrate the combined bank's branches until September. So the next challenge for U.S. Banks is further integration. In fact J.P. hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be spent by Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. during the next few years to integrate their recent purchases of Washington Mutual Inc.'s banking operations, Wachovia Corp. and National City Corp., respectively. It is noted that those six banks hold about 22% of the nation's $7 trillion deposit base.

However, for some banks and financial institution integration won't be very successful. Some branches will be closed and others will get a new look. Millions of customers also will see changes to debit cards and online banking.According to Brad Strothkamp, a retail-banking analyst at consulting firm Forrester Research Inc., such financial situation is observed for the first time in at least 10 years. And massive integrations are predicted to occur simultaneously.But the integration will cause a lot of additional financial spends because the combining two banks is notoriously expensive, complicated and risky. Any significant stumbles will create headaches for retail-banking customers at a time when many are rattled by failures, near-failures and dwindling profits at banks across the U.S. However, some banks are working with two computers systems. Despite its proclivity for large deals, Bank of America still uses a separate computer platform in California a decade after the deal that created the Charlotte, N.C., company. Some Banks also have a reason to use such systems. For example, TD still uses a second system in those branches to handle customers, who opened their accounts at a Poughkeepsie, N.Y., branch of TD Banknorth about a decade ago. That is the longtime name of TD's bank unit in the U.S., but it will be phased out this fall.