For Tadd Tobkin, technology transformation has never been about technology alone. As Executive Vice President at First United Bank, his remit over the past four years has been to help scale a technology-enabled, customer-centred financial institution while remaining firmly connected to the bank’s purpose, communities and regulatory responsibilities. It is a balancing act familiar to many financial services leaders, but one that carries particular significance within community banking where the goal is to help First United’s customers ‘Spend Life Wisely’.
“The focus has been moving technology from a support function to more of an enterprise capability,” Tadd explains. “One that connects our strategy to our operating model, our data, our risk, and our digital experience so that we can serve our customers more consistently and help the company grow sustainably.”
From Transformation to Continuous Evolution
While the term ‘transformation’ remains common across the financial services industry, Tadd questions whether it still accurately describes the challenge facing modern organisations.
“I don’t even know if I like the word transformation anymore,” he says. “It’s just the world we live in. It’s more about evolution than transformation and the evolution is just speeding up.”
For him, transformation implies a beginning and an end. Today’s banking environment offers neither. Instead, against the backdrop of the accelerating pace of change, organisations must develop the capability to continuously adapt to changing customer expectations, technological advances, competitive pressures and regulatory requirements. As organisations come to accept that transformation journeys have no linear timeline change has become a permanent condition requiring an ongoing focus on evolution.
Preserving the Human Character of Community Banking
For First United, technology is not intended to replace relationship banking. Instead, it is designed to strengthen it. That conviction is rooted in personal experience.
Tadd’s father and uncles built a business in rural America with the support of a community bank that invested alongside them as they grew. “Our family was the beneficiary of having a really good community bank,” he recalls. “They invested alongside us shoulder to shoulder in our business and enabled it to grow and bigger banks probably wouldn’t have done that.”
Without that support, he believes their business would never have achieved the same level of success. “At First United, we see those types of customers every day,” he adds. “And so that’s really why First United in the industry is important.”
As a result, the bank’s approach to modernisation is carefully balanced. “Modernisation cannot flatten the human character of community banking,” Tadd says. “It should help bankers serve customers better, faster, and with more insight so we can help them ‘Spend Life Wisely’.”
That principle continues to guide investment decisions and technology strategy across the organisation.
About First United Bank
First United Bank is a leading community-focused financial institution headquartered in Durant, Oklahoma, serving customers across Oklahoma and Texas. Founded more than 125 years ago, the bank has grown from a single location into one of the largest banking organisations in the Southwest, while maintaining its commitment to relationship-based banking and local community engagement. Today, First United serves more than 362,000 customers through a network of 75 community banking locations and manages approximately $16.3 billion in assets.