Beyond the Mainframe: How a New Tech Alliance Unlocks Banking's Data Vault

MINNEAPOLIS & TORONTO – July 21, 2026 – For the world’s largest financial institutions, the mainframe is both a fortress and a prison. It processes an estimated 90% of all credit card transactions with unmatched security and reliability, yet its valuable data is often locked away from the modern AI and analytics platforms that drive innovation. A new collaboration between AI platform company Zafin and enterprise software provider VirtualZ Computing aims to shatter this paradigm, creating a high-speed data bridge that could redefine how banks modernize.

Zafin announced it is leveraging VirtualZ’s PropelZ software to accelerate data operations, connecting its sophisticated AI-driven banking platform directly to the rich data streams originating on z/OS mainframes. The partnership promises to slash processing times, eliminate cumbersome data-handling steps, and ultimately allow banks to innovate faster without undertaking risky and astronomically expensive “rip-and-replace” projects for their core systems.

The Mainframe Modernization Dilemma

For decades, executives have wrestled with the mainframe paradox. These legacy systems are the bedrock of global finance, valued for their resilience and ability to handle immense transaction volumes. However, they are also associated with high operational costs, a shrinking pool of specialized COBOL developers, and immense difficulty integrating with agile, cloud-native technologies. This friction has created a significant drag on digital transformation, slowing the launch of new products and hindering the deployment of advanced AI.

Industry analysts note that the market for mainframe modernization is projected to grow from $8.39 billion in 2025 to over $13 billion by 2030, driven by these exact pressures. Yet, the dominant strategy is shifting. Instead of attempting to replace the irreplaceable, leading institutions are pursuing a hybrid approach: modernizing around the mainframe. The goal is to keep the core transaction engine while seamlessly piping its data into modern environments for analytics, AI model training, and customer-facing applications. This is precisely the challenge the Zafin and VirtualZ collaboration addresses.

A No-Code Bridge to High-Performance Data

At the heart of the collaboration is VirtualZ's PropelZ for Linux, a solution designed to move massive volumes of data off the mainframe with minimal impact and maximum efficiency. Unlike traditional Change Data Capture (CDC) or complex Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes that can be slow, resource-intensive, and require specialized coding, PropelZ operates on a “no-code” basis. It can be installed in hours and works asynchronously to copy data directly from mainframe sources—like VSAM files and system logs—to modern platforms.

This direct, simplified movement is a game-changer. It eliminates multiple intermediate processing layers and the associated operational friction. For Zafin, which builds platforms to manage complex product and pricing logic for top-tier banks, the result is a dramatic improvement in performance.

“Data processing at scale is foundational to modern banking,” said Shahir Daya, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Zafin. “By leveraging PropelZ for Linux within our banking platform strategy, we’ve increased throughput, reduced unnecessary processing layers, and improved operational efficiency all without introducing additional complexity into our systems.”

Critically, VirtualZ’s software is optimized for the IBM Z environment and is zIIP-enabled, meaning it offloads its workload to specialized processors on the mainframe. This minimizes the impact on general processing capacity and, by extension, the costly MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) usage fees that are a major component of mainframe operational expenses.

Powering Governed AI and Business Agility

The true value of this high-speed data pipeline is realized within Zafin's sophisticated platform ecosystem. The data fed by PropelZ flows into Zafin IO, the company’s integration layer, which in turn powers the Zafin Banking Platform and its new Zafin AIOS (AI Orchestration System). With faster, more reliable access to core banking data, Zafin can supercharge its ability to help banks externalize product and pricing logic from legacy systems. This enables clients to launch new offers, personalize pricing, and manage complex billing relationships with far greater speed and precision.

Case studies of Zafin's platform have shown tangible results, such as one bank achieving a return on investment in under 12 months and an annualized revenue uplift of over $3 million. This new integration with VirtualZ is set to amplify those benefits by removing a fundamental data bottleneck.

Furthermore, the collaboration directly addresses the most pressing issue in financial AI: governance. With 80% of financial firms expected to adopt AI by 2026, regulators are intensely focused on ensuring these systems are transparent, auditable, and accountable. Zafin AIOS is designed as a control plane for “governed agentic work,” creating an evidentiary trail for every decision an AI agent makes. By ensuring the data feeding these AI systems is pristine and delivered securely from the system-of-record, the partnership strengthens the foundation for building compliant, trustworthy AI applications.

The Strategic Edge in a Hybrid World

The alliance between VirtualZ and Zafin is more than a technical integration; it’s a strategic blueprint for the future of fintech ecosystems. It demonstrates how two specialized companies—one expert in mainframe data movement, the other in AI-powered banking logic—can combine their strengths to provide a solution that is greater than the sum of its parts. This model offers a compelling alternative to monolithic, single-vendor solutions that often lack the specialized depth needed to solve complex, domain-specific problems.

By enabling a practical and efficient hybrid architecture, the partnership allows banks to leverage decades of investment in their mainframe infrastructure while simultaneously embracing cloud-native innovation. It proves that legacy systems do not have to be an anchor holding back progress.

“Zafin’s use of PropelZ demonstrates how accelerating data movement and removing unnecessary steps can materially improve efficiency and cost structures,” said Jeanne Glass, Founder and CEO of VirtualZ Computing. This efficiency allows engineering teams to shift their focus from managing infrastructure to driving innovation, a critical advantage in the hyper-competitive banking landscape. By creating a seamless and governed flow of information from the core to the cloud, this collaboration provides a stronger foundation for the next wave of digital transformation in finance.