When I was a kid I spent countless hours collecting, trading, playing with (and sometimes blowing up with firecrackers) Star Wars action figures. They are the toy that defined most childhoods in the late 70’s and early 80’s. That is until Transformers toys came out. You remember those right? It seemed like over night my precious Millennium Falcon and every single action figure I had were completely out of vogue. I had a few Transformers as well, but they never held my attention like the Star Wars toys I loved so much. Because my friends had completely converted I was left in the middle. Why couldn’t these guys have a Resees Peanut Butter cup moment? You know what I mean… “Two great tastes that taste great together?�? You guessed it: they finally did. I was in Target the other day and saw something my childhood brain could only dream of: A Star Wars Tie-Fighter that was a Transformer-Darth Vader! Where was this when I was a kid?

I guess now you’re wondering what nostalgia for toys from my childhood and Star Wars versus Transformers has to do with banking. You’d think nothing- other than the money exchanged for said action figure was processed through a bank, but dig a little deeper… Around here at The Garland Group we talk a lot about “old�? versus “new�?. New bankers, old models of interaction, Banking 2.0, checkbooks versus debit cards, proprietary versus open source, the list is almost endless. It’s inevitable that the old guard becomes defensive, the brash young guns seem to take over. Polarization is a natural effect of change, and if you haven’t noticed the financial services industry is changing. Like the predicament of having your favorite childhood toy suddenly go out of vogue, financial institutions face the challenge of adjusting to all these new things: sharing information (securely), providing new services (that line up with strategic plans), attracting new customers (that move beyond ‘free checking’) Will every bank become a Transformer? Nope. There’s a population segment that the “new banker�? won’t appeal to. Will all banks become the hybrid Darth Transformer? Maybe.

Hopefully if you are a banker you’ve found out how to incorporate new tools into your financial institution, (and if you aren’t a banker, your FI has found tools that reach out to you in meaningful ways). Either way that’s what we’re all about here at The Garland Group. Connecting FI’s with tools and people that will change the way you pay for your action figures!