Modernizing at Scale: How VelX Cut Costs, Reduced Risk, and Accelerated Delivery. Financial Institutions Study in Latin America

The Challenge: Costly Legacy Systems Dragging Down Modernization Efforts

Companies with decades of operational history often operate with hundreds of interdependent legacy applications—many unsupported, undocumented, and inefficient. As example, for financial institutions with 10M+ active users, these systems create ballooning maintenance costs, hinder innovation, and put institutions at risk of service disruptions.

This was the case for two of the largest financial services institutions in Latin America.

One of them, a top-tier regional bank founded in the early 1900s, had grown through acquisitions and internal expansion, resulting in a fragmented IT architecture. The bank’s core systems had not been meaningfully updated in years, and technical debt had accumulated to the point where basic maintenance required disproportionate resources. Teams spent more time firefighting and reverse-engineering old code than delivering new value to customers.

The second, a financial services conglomerate with operations across several Latin American countries, faced a different challenge: decades of organic growth had left its digital ecosystem bloated with redundant and undocumented systems. With operations touching millions of end-users and hundreds of partners, the company struggled to maintain performance and security standards while preparing for regional expansion.

“We were running over 300 applications—some dating back 20 years. Just figuring out what still worked and what didn’t was costing us both time and money.”
— CTO, Latin American Bank

The Solution: VelX – AI-Powered Modernization Engine by Devsu

Devsu developed VelX to solve a recurring pain point for its enterprise clients: how to understand, modernize, and optimize legacy systems without disrupting critical operations.

VelX is an AI-powered modernization engine designed specifically for complex, compliance-heavy environments like health, banking and finance, hospitality, streaming and media, insurance, and more. It works in three phases:

• Intelligence Mapping – VelX uses AI to scan and analyze legacy systems, generating a comprehensive inventory and dependency map. This phase gives teams complete visibility into what exists, what’s critical, and what’s obsolete.
• Modernization Planning – Based on the analysis, VelX identifies modernization opportunities and recommends migration paths, from replatforming to refactoring, prioritizing based on business impact and technical feasibility.
• Automated Optimization – VelX leverages automation to accelerate implementation, including code transformation, API integration, and performance optimization, minimizing disruption while boosting efficiency.

The result? Modernization and feature delivery up to 90% faster,  with lower risk, reduced costs, and a clear path to scalable, future-proof digital infrastructure.

Case Study 1: Cutting $24M in Annual Waste for a Major Latin American Bank

Context:

A century-old, top-five bank in Latin America was operating with a highly fragmented IT landscape. Over the years, organic growth, mergers, and departmental silos had led to the accumulation of more than 300 internal applications—many of them undocumented, unsupported, or performing duplicate functions.

This complexity created a cascading set of problems:

• 35% of applications were redundant or outdated, but no centralized visibility existed to confidently decommission them.
• Maintenance of legacy systems consumed a significant portion of IT budget and engineering bandwidth, leaving little room for innovation.
• Uptime had dropped to 98.9%, well below the industry benchmark of 99.9%, leading to recurring service disruptions and customer dissatisfaction.
• Regulatory audits were time-consuming and painful, with systems lacking proper documentation and traceability.
• Modernization initiatives routinely stalled due to unclear system dependencies and fear of unintended consequences.

Internal teams estimated $80M in annual losses tied to inefficient systems, duplicated work, unnecessary maintenance, and unplanned downtime—but lacked a clear roadmap to reduce it.

VelX Outcomes:

To tackle these challenges, the bank partnered with Devsu to deploy VelX, our AI-powered modernization engine. In just a few weeks, VelX delivered what would have taken internal teams months—mapping the entire system landscape, identifying redundancies, and accelerating transformation without disrupting critical services. The results were transformative across every phase of the modernization journey:

• 90% Reduction in Discovery Time
  VelX Explorer completed full system assessments—previously taking 3–6 months—in under 3 weeks.
• 60% Faster Solution Design
  VelX Architect used AI-generated architecture blueprints aligned to the client’s compliance and tech stack, reducing planning cycles from 10 weeks to 4.
• 40% Faster Implementation Time
  VelX Coder accelerated feature delivery timelines, cutting 8-month cycles down to 12–14 weeks.
• Estimated Savings: $24M–$30M Annually
  Through system decommissioning, reduced rework, and fewer system outages.
• Uptime Improved to 99.96%
  With critical system vulnerabilities patched and more resilient architecture in place.

Case Study 2: Reducing Loan Workflow Time by 72%

Context:

A fast-growing regional bank focused on consumer credit was facing growing operational strain. Despite offering pre-approved loans, the internal approval and deployment workflow remained slow and manually intensive, requiring roughly 144 hours of engineering time per release cycle. This created a bottleneck for shipping updates, testing new features, and maintaining compliance.

Key challenges included:

• Manual loan approval processes built on fragmented internal tools that delayed feature releases.
• Rigid architecture that made it difficult to experiment or iterate without significant risk to production systems.
• Compliance and audit fatigue, with engineers spending hours validating workflows against evolving regulatory standards.
• A growing gap between product vision and delivery capacity—slowing innovation and frustrating both internal teams and customers.

With increasing transaction volumes and heightened customer expectations, the bank needed a faster, safer way to ship updates and scale operations, without hiring more engineers or risking downtime.

VelX Outcomes:

To streamline operations and reduce the strain on engineering resources, the bank implemented VelX across its loan approval systems. By leveraging automation, AI-driven validation, and optimized workflows, VelX helped the institution dramatically cut down development time, strengthen security, and enhance the customer experience—all without requiring major infrastructure changes. The impact was immediate and measurable:

•  Cut Development Time to 40 Hours
  Using VelX Coder to automate and validate workflows, freeing up engineering for innovation.
• Enhanced Security & Performance Audits
  Ensured customer data compliance and system integrity under high transaction volumes.
• +30% Increase in NPS
  Due to faster approvals, fewer errors, and better UX.

Why VelX Is Different: Strategic AI for Regulated Environments

Sustained Partnership & Advisory Engagement

Beyond delivering a tool, Devsu integrates with clients through continuous advisory services, architecture co-design, and post-deployment support. Several banks have joined our A(i)dvantage Council, contributing insights to future VelX features and ensuring shared value creation across the ecosystem.

“We saw Devsu not as a vendor, but as an extension of our strategy team. VelX delivered results—but the people behind it helped us reshape how we think about legacy systems.”
— VP, Digital Transformation, Regional Bank

Summary of Outcomes Across VelX Clients

Want to See the Numbers for Your Institution?

For later-stage conversations, Devsu offers access to:

• Value calculators customized for your stack and challenges
• Retention benchmarks showing long-term outcomes
• Client references from transformation leaders in finance

Conclusion: VelX Enables Enterprises to Move Fast—Without Breaking Systems

In each economic sector, agility is often sacrificed for security, VelX helps modernize with confidence—not just faster, but smarter. If you’re wrestling with technical debt, long delivery cycles, or growing pressure to digitize, VelX offers a strategic path forward.

Contact Devsu today to request a confidential assessment or see a tailored VelX demo based on your application environment.