Core banking platforms running billion-dollar transactions on decade-old architecture.
3.4x
higher than budgeted — the true total cost of ownership of legacy banking systems
Banks consistently underestimate legacy costs by 70-80%. What looks like a manageable expense is almost always three times larger when all factors are counted.
Source: Deloitte Banking Survey, 2024
69%
of banking IT leaders cite legacy skills gaps as their primary modernization barrier
COBOL programmers cost 2-3x market rates. As they retire, the knowledge leaves with them — and the systems become even harder to touch.
Source: 10x Banking, 2024
42%
higher payments revenue achieved by banks using modern payment technology
The innovation gap compounds annually. Banks on modern infrastructure deploy new features in days. Legacy banks take months — or years.
Source: IDC Financial Insights
THE PROBLEM
The core banking system was built before most of the current staff were hired. It runs the most critical operations in the institution and nobody fully understands all of it anymore. The engineers who built it have retired. The documentation is incomplete. Every change requires weeks of testing because nobody is sure what else might break. Meanwhile neobanks launch new features in a week. Your institution takes a quarter. And somewhere in the boardroom, everyone agrees something needs to change — but the risk of touching the system feels greater than the cost of leaving it alone.
Core systems so complex and undocumented that minor changes require months of testing
COBOL and legacy language dependency — specialist knowledge retiring faster than it can be replaced
Real-time payment capability absent — directly losing customers and revenue to modern competitors
Modernization paralysis — the perceived risk of change outweighing the known cost of staying still
System Diagnostic
Core systems so complex and un...
CRITICALCOBOL and legacy language dependency
CRITICALReal-time payment capability absent
WARNINGModernization paralysis
LEGACY// Every day without action compounds the cost.
BY THE NUMBERS
3.4x
higher than budgeted — the true total cost of ownership of legacy banking systems
Banks consistently underestimate legacy costs by 70-80%. What looks like a manageable expense is almost always three times larger when all factors are counted.
69%
of banking IT leaders cite legacy skills gaps as their primary modernization barrier
COBOL programmers cost 2-3x market rates. As they retire, the knowledge leaves with them — and the systems become even harder to touch.
42%
higher payments revenue achieved by banks using modern payment technology
The innovation gap compounds annually. Banks on modern infrastructure deploy new features in days. Legacy banks take months — or years.
$36.7B
spent by global banks maintaining outdated payment systems in 2022 alone
HOW WE REDEFINE IT
We have built a methodology specifically for this situation — the system too critical to touch and too expensive to leave alone. We map every process, every dependency, every undocumented behaviour. Then we build the modern core alongside the existing one, migrating function by function with zero downtime. The knowledge does not leave when the COBOL engineers retire. It gets encoded into a system that your next generation of engineers can actually work with.
Without Devpth
Core banking system requiring specialist COBOL knowledge costing 2-3x market rates
New feature deployment taking months — losing ground to neobanks deploying weekly
True TCO 3.4x higher than budgeted — hidden costs invisible until they become crises
Real-time payment infrastructure absent — forfeiting billions in instant payment volume
With Devpth
Modern core banking platform built on maintainable, well-documented architecture
Feature deployment in days — engineering team able to respond to market changes in real time
Full cost visibility with predictable infrastructure spend and no hidden legacy surprises
Real-time payment capability across all channels with the infrastructure to scale it
WHAT WE BRING TO BANKING
DEVPTH ENGINEERING FOR BANKING
This is a pattern we are built to solve — not a case history. Tell us where banking breaks for you, and we will map what better looks like.
We do not have a packaged product for Banking yet — we engineer this as a services engagement, built around your systems.
REDEFINE ENGINEERING
Tell us what your current system cannot do that your customers already expect. We will engineer the path from here to there.
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