Engineering Transformation in Financial Services: From Legacy to Cloud-Native

In today’s financial services landscape, the imperative to modernize legacy systems and embrace cloud-native architectures is more urgent than ever. Banks, insurers, and wealth managers face mounting pressure from digital-native competitors, evolving customer expectations, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Yet, many organizations remain constrained by decades-old technology, siloed operations, and the high cost of maintaining legacy infrastructure. Engineering transformation is not just a technology upgrade—it’s a strategic enabler for resilience, agility, and sustainable growth.

Financial institutions operate in one of the most demanding environments for technology transformation. Key challenges include:

• Legacy Systems: Outdated, monolithic architectures hinder innovation, slow time-to-market, and increase operational risk.
• Regulatory Demands: Compliance and security requirements are non-negotiable, adding complexity to every transformation initiative.
• Siloed Data and Operations: Fragmented systems make it difficult to deliver seamless, personalized customer experiences and leverage data for real-time insights.
• Digital-First Competition: Fintechs and digital challengers are redefining customer expectations, forcing incumbents to accelerate their own transformation journeys.

At Publicis Sapient, we believe that true engineering transformation in financial services requires a holistic, value-driven approach. Our methodology is grounded in:

• Agile Engineering: Embedding agile principles across teams to enable rapid iteration, continuous learning, and faster delivery of new products and features. This shift from project-based to product-based thinking ensures that both customer and business value are at the heart of every initiative.
• Cloud Migration: Leveraging deep expertise and strong partnerships with leading cloud providers, we help financial institutions migrate critical workloads to secure, scalable cloud environments. This not only reduces costs and increases agility but also enhances compliance and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Microservices & APIs: Modernizing monolithic systems by engineering microservices and API platforms. This modular approach accelerates digital innovation, enables seamless integration of new technologies, and supports the adoption of AI and advanced analytics.
• Security and Compliance by Design: Security and regulatory compliance are embedded from the outset, with robust controls, automated testing, and continuous monitoring to ensure every digital product meets the highest standards.
• Data-Driven Value Creation: Connecting and refining data across the enterprise to make it actionable for compliance, risk management, and customer experience initiatives. Our data modernization strategies enable real-time insights, predictive analytics, and hyper-personalized services.

Our engineering transformation framework is built on lean methods, value stream analysis, and the use of accelerators to increase the pace and success of change. This approach has delivered measurable outcomes for leading financial institutions:

Case Study: Lloyds Banking Group

Lloyds Banking Group, one of the UK’s largest banks, partnered with Publicis Sapient to revolutionize its engineering organization. Facing extensive legacy systems and the need to deliver new digital products at speed, Lloyds adopted a framework based on agile principles and value stream analysis. The results were transformative:

• 20–30% reduction in time from backlog to production, enabling faster speed-to-market for new features and regulatory changes.
• 10–20% reduction in effort to make architectural and operational changes, resulting in significant cost savings and increased agility.
• 30% improvement in quality, as measured by a reduction in post-deployment defects.
• Enhanced employee satisfaction, with a measurable improvement in the people happiness index.

This transformation was achieved through a combination of value-focused analysis, prioritization of high-impact interventions, and the use of accelerators to increase the pace and success of change. The result: a resilient, future-ready engineering organization capable of thriving in a rapidly changing financial landscape.

• Banking: We help banks modernize their core platforms, harness the power of data, and create customer journeys that drive loyalty and growth. Our cloud-native solutions enable rapid product launches and real-time engagement.
• Insurance: Our engineering teams enable insurers to digitize claims, personalize products, and streamline operations, making it easier to respond to customer needs and regulatory changes.
• Wealth and Asset Management: We empower asset managers and wealth advisors to create seamless digital platforms, supporting comprehensive transformation and improved client experiences.

Transformation in financial services requires more than technology—it demands the right ecosystem of partners. Publicis Sapient brings together leading fintechs, cloud providers, and software vendors to create tailored solutions for every client. Our partnerships with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Salesforce, and others ensure that our clients benefit from the latest innovations in cloud, AI, and data platforms.

• 30+ years of digital engineering expertise with a proven track record in financial services
• 20,000+ experts across 53+ offices worldwide
• Deep partnerships with leading technology providers
• A holistic, data-driven approach that unites system modernization, cloud solutions, and AI-driven insights
• A relentless focus on value, security, and compliance

Financial services organizations that embrace engineering transformation are better positioned to respond to disruption, launch innovative products, and meet regulatory demands with confidence. Whether you are just starting your modernization journey or looking to scale and sustain your progress, Publicis Sapient is your partner for industry-focused engineering transformation.

Connect with our experts to learn how we can help your organization thrive in the digital age.

Relevant Links

• Financial Services Consulting & Insights
• Regional Deep Dive: Digital Transformation in Canadian Financial Services
• Transformación Digital en Servicios Financieros en América Latina: Innovación, Cumplimiento y Experiencia del Cliente (LATAM)
• Transformation numérique des services financiers en Europe : Opportunités et défis pour les dirigeants (Europe)
• Financial Services Consulting & Insights