Umbraco in the banking sector: what Brazil can learn from migrating over 130 websites
At first, casually. Then more consistently. And always with the same backdrop: Brazil, the financial sector, and a growing interest in more flexible digital platforms.
It’s not hard to see why.
Brazil’s banking sector operates under constant pressure to evolve. More channels. More integrations. Increasing regulatory demands. Stronger digital competition. And less room for technical decisions that only solve today’s problems. In this context, choosing a CMS is no longer just a technology decision. It becomes a decision about scale, maintainability and long-term adaptability.
When we talk about banks, fintechs and financial organisations, we’re talking about environments where complexity doesn’t show up on day one. It builds over time.
At the start, the goal may seem straightforward: launch a new website, improve the digital experience, reorganise content, integrate a few services. But a few months in, new demands begin to surface. New workflows. New teams. New brands. New integrations. New governance layers.
This is where Umbraco starts to stand out.
Not because it’s the loudest option in the market. And not because it promises shortcuts. But because it offers a solid foundation for teams that need technical control, architectural flexibility and room to grow without having to start from scratch.
In markets like Brazil, where the financial sector is highly dynamic, this becomes particularly relevant.
Over the years, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat across more demanding projects.
The CMS, on its own, is almost never the root of the problem.
What tends to limit a platform’s evolution are decisions made too early, with too short a view. Structures designed only for launch. Content models lacking depth. Integrations built to “work for now” but not to support growth. Architectures that seem efficient at the beginning but start to fail as the project scales.
In banking, this matters even more. Because the margin for improvisation is small, and the cost of fixing things later is usually high.
That’s why, when discussing Umbraco in the financial sector, the most relevant question isn’t “does it work?”. The real question is: does it still work when the platform grows?
Recently, we worked with Progress on a project in the Irish financial sector, focused on credit unions.
The challenge was far from small. The kind of project that quickly separates improvised solutions from truly scalable approaches.
We’re talking about migrating more than 130 websites to a new Umbraco foundation.
At first glance, the number stands out. But what matters most is what it represents.
Each migration comes with its own structure, history, dependencies and context. When this process scales, it stops being just a technical task. It becomes a system problem — one of consistency, control and execution.
And this is exactly where many projects begin to show their weaknesses.
To address this challenge, we used Umbrashift, our migration platform.
The thinking behind it is simple: as volume grows, relying on manual processes is no longer realistic.
This isn’t just about speeding things up. It’s about creating predictability. Reducing risk. Ensuring consistency across dozens of implementations. Turning what could be a fragmented and fragile process into a structured, repeatable operation.
What this project reinforced is clear: in multi-site environments, the difference between a controlled migration and a chaotic one often comes down to thinking in systems, not isolated tasks.
This is where the parallel with Brazil becomes interesting.
The Brazilian financial sector already operates under high digital pressure. There’s a need for speed, but also for robustness. A push for modernisation, without losing control. Space for innovation, but grounded in operational reality.
As more projects move into phases of consolidation and growth, it’s natural to see similar needs emerge: multi-site structures, distributed governance, critical integrations, continuous evolution and a stronger focus on platform longevity.
In this context, Umbraco can be a very strong choice.
But only when approached with the level of maturity that this environment demands.
There’s a significant difference between getting a project live and preparing a platform to support years of growth.
In the first case, the focus is usually on deadlines. In the second, the focus shifts to the foundation.
And that foundation is built on decisions that aren’t always visible to those who only see the final result. It’s shaped by how content is structured. The clarity of the architecture. The quality of integrations. The ability to evolve without breaking what already exists. The discipline to prepare for the future before it becomes urgent.
In banking, this isn’t a technical detail. It’s what separates sustainable platforms from systems that age too quickly.
At Double Shore, this is exactly the type of work we focus on.
Projects where the challenge isn’t just building, but structuring things properly from the start. Environments with multiple sites, complex contexts, sensitive integrations and decisions that go far beyond go-live.
Working with Progress and using Umbrashift in this project reinforced something we’ve been seeing for some time: as scale increases, expertise in architecture and migration stops being optional. It becomes central to the project’s success.
The growing interest in Umbraco within Brazil’s banking sector doesn’t seem accidental.
It feels like a natural response from a market that needs platforms that are more flexible, more controllable and better prepared to evolve.
And, as is often the case in technology, the tool is only part of the story.
The other part — often the most decisive — lies in how the implementation is designed from the start.
When that’s done well, Umbraco is not just a viable option for the financial sector. It can become a strong foundation for platforms that need to grow with confidence.
