Managed Evolution of a Legacy Core Banking System: Case Study from a European Bank

Creators: Brune, Philipp and Helbig, Kay
Title: Managed Evolution of a Legacy Core Banking System: Case Study from a European Bank
Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
Event Title: (Proceedings of the) 22nd Annual Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (itAIS)
Event Location: Castellanza, Italy
Event Dates: October, 17-18, 2025
Projects: TTZ-GZ
Date: 18 October 2025
Divisions: Informationsmanagement
Abstract: Legacy systems continue to remain crucial for the core business operations of most financial service providers around the globe. However, increasing operational risk due to knowledge loss and lack of skills because of demographic change, rising maintenance and run costs, as well as changing business requirements, put organizations under pressure to modernize them. By applying the case study research methodology, this paper derives the core elements of a socio-technical system design methodology for the stepwise managed evolution of a large, mainframe-based and historically grown legacy application. It demonstrates why this approach could be superior to frequently favored "lift-and-shift" or replace strategies, with respect to cost efficiency, risk mitigation and solution quality. In addition, a system architecture and implementation strategy are proposed and evaluated to demonstrate, how this is achieved.
Abstract (ENG): Legacy systems continue to remain crucial for the core business operations of most financial service providers around the globe. However, increasing operational risk due to knowledge loss and lack of skills because of demographic change, rising maintenance and run costs, as well as changing business requirements, put organizations under pressure to modernize them. By applying the case study research methodology, this paper derives the core elements of a socio-technical system design methodology for the stepwise managed evolution of a large, mainframe-based and historically grown legacy application. It demonstrates why this approach could be superior to frequently favored "lift-and-shift" or replace strategies, with respect to cost efficiency, risk mitigation and solution quality. In addition, a system architecture and implementation strategy are proposed and evaluated to demonstrate, how this is achieved.
Forthcoming: No
Main areas or research: Transformationmanagement
Language: English
Uncontrolled Keywords: Legacy Modernization ; Socio-Technical Systems ; Core Banking System ; Re-Engineering ; COBOL ; Java
Citation:

Brune, Philipp and Helbig, Kay (2025) Managed Evolution of a Legacy Core Banking System: Case Study from a European Bank. In: (Proceedings of the) 22nd Annual Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (itAIS), October, 17-18, 2025, Castellanza, Italy.

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