Relevantz Treehouse of Horror: 3 Spooky Tales from the Banking Sector

Step into the unseen world of banking technology — where digital specters and monstrous mainframes await. In three chilling tales, our characters face the horrors of poor modernization, haunted legacy systems, and unstructured code run amok.  

Brace yourself for a journey into the dark side of banking technology. 

Banking on the Past 

Once upon a time, there was a brilliant programmer named John who dedicated his skills to the world of banking. As a bank’s esteemed IT specialist, he worked tirelessly on their core banking systems, ensuring seamless operations. Life seemed perfect for John until fate dealt him a devastating blow: a terminal illness. 

Determined to explore the possibilities of a brighter future, John made the courageous decision to be cryogenically frozen, hoping that one day a cure would be found. 

After what felt like an eternity, John gradually awakened from his frozen slumber. As his eyes adjusted to the room’s bright lights, he was greeted by many smiling faces. Astonished, he learned that it was now the year 3000. 

“Phew,” he said. “So it worked? There is a cure for what I have?” 

“Yes,” said a voice in the crowd. “For all illnesses, in fact.” 

Overwhelmed by an immense wave of joy, John’s mouth widened with an infectious smile. “Life must be truly extraordinary here, right? A utopia?” 

The owner of the voice, an older man with a kind face, stepped forward. He extended his hand to John, helped him get up, and guided him toward a sun-drenched balcony. Peering over the edge, John’s gaze fell upon a sea of people, their eyes filled with admiration as they looked up at him and cheered. 

Their words of jubilation echoed through the air, declaring, “We’re saved!” 

He then looked up and noticed a big screen on a building, like the ones he remembered seeing in Times Square. It showcased a live feed of himself and the older man, accompanied by a headline: “Prime Minister of Earth Meets with Once Frozen Man.” 

Bewildered, John turned to the man beside him, his voice trembling with a mix of astonishment and curiosity. “You’re the Prime Minister of Earth? Why are you meeting with me? And why are all these people cheering?” 

“What you said about the earth being a utopia was almost right,” said the Prime Minister, “but our banking systems are in shambles.” The stern expression on his face softened as he broke into a smile. “And it says in your files that you know COBOL.” 

Bank vs Zombies 

In the thriving heart of the city, Raimi Bank and Trust stood as a beacon, lauded for its exceptional customer service, competitive interest rates, and comprehensive financial services. But behind its solid, timeless facade, a lurking terror threatened its momentum. 

Inside the bank’s server room, the usual sight of glowing hardware and cables was missing. In their place materialized a horde of undead creatures. These weren’t your typical zombies — they were the living (dead) embodiment of the bank’s legacy systems. The zombies shuffled aimlessly in rows, haunting the spaces where mainframes once stood.  

From the archaic mainframe systems to the outdated database technologies these zombies represented, they were the life force of the bank’s operations, However, as time went on, they had become shackles of progress. 

As the bank staff went about their daily routines, the zombies lurked in the server room, causing havoc and impeding progress. This, as you can imagine, made their legacy systems now hard to ignore. 

Gone were the usual zombie groans for “brains.” Instead, these undead entities whispered an unsettling chorus that could be heard throughout the bank. “Scalability! Scalability!” they murmured, a haunting reminder of their greatest deficiency.  

Their eerier chorus didn’t stop there. Their lament included a number of the “-ilities”: “Usability! Security! Maintainability! Availability! Portability!” Each word symbolized a crucial attribute that the legacy systems desperately needed but sorely lacked. They even seemed to gravitate toward the fiber optic cables, as if attempting to extract these modern qualities from the bank’s newer, cloud-based software systems. 

The question on everyone’s lips was how to get rid of these legacy system zombies. 

“Shoot them in the head!” said Allen, the bank’s chief executive. 

Ryan, the IT manager, shook his head.  

“Why not? It works in the movies!” 

“This isn’t a movie,” said Ryan. “It’s a story for a blog post — a metaphor-laden narrative using Halloween-esque imagery to convey real-world problems.” 

“Oh, sorry,” said Allen. “So, why won’t headshots work? Just take each one out with a big bang.” 

Ryan sighed. “Despite their obsolescence, our legacy systems support key operations. Abrupt removal could cause business disruptions with devastating effects.” 

Allen raised his hands in frustration. “So if the proverbial headshot won’t work, what can we do?” 

“We need incremental modernization,” said Ryan. “That means each component, each zombie part, must be updated individually to ensure minimal disruption.” 

The bank, led by Ryan’s IT team, embarked on a quest to incrementally update its legacy systems. As each system modernized, a former zombie was either whisked off to the cloud or reconfigured on-premises. The eerie chants of “Usability! Scalability! Security!” grew quieter. The bank’s systems, once craving these qualities, were now efficiently humming with them. 

With wide eyes and beaming smiles, the bank’s staff watched in awe as the server room zombies succumbed to strategic modernization. Each successful update signified a step toward future-readiness.  

The bank’s once daunting legacy systems now embodied progress and potential. 

Through the careful implementation of the modernization plan, the bank banished the bottlenecks caused by its legacy system zombies. The updated systems breathed new life into the bank’s operations, empowering its employees and enhancing productivity. The server room, once a haunting ground of the undead, now buzzed with the vitality of a revitalized ecosystem. 

The Spaghetti Code Monster 

Nestled amidst skyscrapers that pierced the clouds and cars that flew through the air, Raimi Bank and Trust stood as an enduring symbol of stability.  

Among the bank’s newest faces was a software engineer named Melissa. Little did she know, she was brought on to make sense of the bank’s outdated and confusing codebase left by her predecessor, Ryan.  

Ryan was no ordinary programmer. He was a legend, a hero who had once vanquished a horde of zombies that threatened to take down the entire banking system. Emboldened by his victory, however, he began to dabble in the dark arts of coding. Intricate loops within loops, complex functions, and enigmatic algorithms became his signature style. No one could understand it. As time passed, he grew excessively guarded about his code, forbidding anyone from reviewing it. 

Or from opening the mysterious box he kept locked under his desk. 

Upon his retirement, Ryan revealed his magnum opus. He unlocked the box, revealing a creature dreaded by all developers. 

A spaghetti code monster.  

This beast of code was a tangled labyrinth of cryptic commands and convoluted procedures, turning every task of system maintenance and enhancement into an endless struggle. 

On her first day, Melissa was introduced to the spaghetti code monster. It was initially portrayed as a mild nuisance — it would snarl occasionally but was generally kept in check. However, the true extent of the challenges ahead remained unknown.  

On Melissa’s fifth day at the bank, an unexpected bug roused the monster from its subdued state, provoking it into a disruptive frenzy. The bank’s critical operations were thrown into chaos, and panic began to spread throughout the IT department. 

The task of taming the spaghetti code monster now fell upon Melissa’s shoulders. 

Melissa opened up her trusty IDE. “Alright, time to crack this mess,” she said, diving into the daunting abyss of tangled code. Day in and day out, she wrestled with the digital monster, trying to decode its complex network. But for every line she managed to make sense of, ten more would kink into knots, and the monster’s tendrils continued their relentless assault on the system. 

And at her ankles, on occasion. 

But a revelation soon hit her. The monster wasn’t to be fought; it needed to be tamed and reformed. She knew the secret weapon that could help. 

Refactoring. 

Her colleagues stood behind her as Melissa confronted the daunting challenge of untangling the gnarled legacy code.  

“It’s too strong!” she shouted. “I don’t think I can do it alone!” 

Without hesitation, her colleagues pulled up chairs beside her, their fingers dancing across the keyboards in unison. Together, they waged a determined battle against the spaghetti code monster, steadily untangling its complexities. 

Gradually, they began refactoring this complex mess into cleaner, more maintainable, and efficient code. 

“Aha, it’s beginning to play nice!” With a thin layer of victory sweat on her brow, Melissa couldn’t hide her excitement at the emerging progress. 

With time, the once terrifying creature started to transform under Melissa’s diligent care. 

The spaghetti code monster gradually shed its tangled exterior, morphing into a streamlined and efficient code base. Instead of an unmanageable beast, it became a tame, cooperative system, performing its core banking functions with new-found efficiency. 

When all was said and done, the bank’s operations were back to normal, and the team heaved a sigh of relief. The once monstrous spaghetti code beast was now a reminder of the importance of clean, structured, and well-maintained code.  

In honor of their journey, they named their pet ‘Tech Debt,’ or ‘Teddy’ for short. 

The End 

I hope these eerie tales sent a chill down your spine . . . or at least made you crack a smile and reflect on your own banking IT situation. As you step onto your own path of digital transformation and legacy modernization, let these stories be your guide. 

Are you ready to ensure your tech journey doesn’t become your own horror story? 

What Relevantz Can Do for You 

Relevantz can be the partner you need to help you along your application modernization and digital transformation journeys. With our business-first, outside-in modernization approach, we can help you rehost, replatform, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, and replace your current enterprise systems, separate the applications from legacy infrastructure, modularize intermingled business processes, liberate data from legacy systems, and innovate new digital systems. 

And because our approach is iterative, your enterprise will be able to enjoy all the benefits of new information technologies, such as having the agility to adapt quickly to the demands of the marketplace, while keeping your legacy systems humming behind the scenes. 

Are you ready to embark on your modernization journey with a stable, well-planned approach?