A method and system for high speed data access of a banked cache memory. In accordance with the method and system of the present invention, during a first cycle, in response to receipt of a request address at an access controller, the request address is speculatively transmitted to a banked cache memory, where the speculative transmission has at least one cycle of latency. Concurrently, the request address is snooped in a directory associated with the banked cache memory. Thereafter, during a second cycle the speculatively transmitted request address is distributed to each of multiple banks of memory within the banked cache memory. In addition, the banked cache memory is provided with a bank indication indicating which bank of memory among the multiple banks of memory contains the request address, in response to a bank hit from snooping the directory. Thereafter, data associated with the request address is output from the banked cache memory, in response to the bank indication, such that access time to a high latency remote banked cache memory is minimized.