Core banking transformations are among the most complex and high-risk technology projects a financial institution can undertake. National Bank of Greece’s completion of Project Cosmos marks a significant milestone not only for the bank but also for the wider European banking sector. By migrating millions of customers, accounts, and loans onto a modern cloud-native platform, NBG has laid the foundation for faster product innovation, improved operational efficiency, and greater scalability as banks increasingly move away from decades-old legacy infrastructure.
National Bank of Greece (NBG) has completed the migration of its core IT architecture, executing a comprehensive infrastructure overhaul utilising the cloud-native Finacle platform from technology vendor Infosys. Characterised as the largest financial technology deployment ever undertaken in the Greek banking sector, the comprehensive multi-year modernisation program internally designated as Project Cosmos unifies all client portfolios, deposit accounts, and lending facilities into a single operational environment.
The successful final phase follows a gradual migration strategy that began in 2023, when NBG initially deployed the cloud-native Finacle platform to power its corporate and small and medium enterprise (SME) loan books. Backed by consultative and technical execution support from IBM and Deloitte, the program has scaled to migrate more than six million banking customers, 12 million individual deposit accounts, and over 1.5 million active loans across retail and commercial lending segments. Stratos Molyviatis, Chief Operating Officer at NBG, noted that the sweeping transformation framework mobilised more than 1,000 technology and financial professionals across three continents, resulting in approximately 500,000 working days to replace the bank’s legacy back-end processing layers.
The transition from rigid, legacy monolithic architectures to a containerised microservices infrastructure aims to reduce the total cost of ownership, streamline real-time transaction processing, and accelerate product parameterisation. The completed digital upgrade provides NBG with open API connectivity to deploy tailored, automated financial services across its digital banking channels. Moving forward, the financial group plans to extend the core Finacle framework across all international subsidiaries, including its banking division in Cyprus. This structural transition brings next-generation agility to NBG’s broader Mediterranean footprint, optimising its regional capacity to manage complex regulatory requirements and to scale digital customer engagement workflows.
What this means for the industry
- Large-scale core banking modernisation is accelerating across Europe: Banks are increasingly replacing legacy systems that limit agility, increase operational costs, and slow digital transformation initiatives.
- Cloud-native platforms are becoming the preferred foundation for future banking operations: The successful deployment demonstrates growing confidence in modern, microservices-based architectures for managing mission-critical banking workloads.
- Core transformation projects are shifting from technology upgrades to strategic business initiatives: Banks are investing in new core platforms to support faster product launches, real-time services, and personalised customer experiences rather than simply replacing ageing systems.
- Migration at scale is becoming more achievable: Successfully moving more than six million customers and millions of accounts shows that large institutions can execute complex migrations without disrupting core banking operations.
- Open API ecosystems are becoming a competitive necessity: Modern core platforms enable banks to integrate more easily with fintech partners, digital channels, and emerging financial services ecosystems.
- Operational efficiency and cost reduction remain key drivers: Moving from monolithic legacy systems to cloud-native environments can reduce infrastructure complexity, improve scalability, and lower long-term technology costs.
- Regional expansion becomes easier with a unified core platform: NBG’s plans to extend the architecture across international subsidiaries reflect a growing trend toward standardised banking infrastructure across multiple markets.
- Demand for specialised transformation partners continues to grow: Large-scale modernisation projects increasingly require collaboration between technology providers, systems integrators, and consulting firms to manage execution risk and regulatory complexity.
- The next battleground is innovation speed: Banks that modernise their core infrastructure will be better positioned to introduce new digital products, automate processes, and respond more quickly to changing customer expectations and market conditions.
Photo by Etienne Martin
