Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were pulling back. But with technology threatening to disrupt Eastern's relationship banking model, CEO Bob Rivers is getting worried. Looking to spur innovation at the bank, he set up meetings at MIT to talk with "fintech" entrepreneurs. In a deliberate quest for innovation talent, Rivers finds his way to Dan O'Malley, co-founder of the payments division at Capital One and, most recently, CEO of a failed online bank. O'Malley agrees to join the bank as Chief Digital Officer, leading product development, customer support, and "Eastern Labs"-a new office enclosed by glass walls and located in the middle of Eastern's main lobby. Rivers provides Labs with $4 million annually-1% of gross revenues-to develop new banking technologies, and promises to help O'Malley spin out his own company if he develops product that can be monetized. O'Malley conducts tests in insurance cross-selling and small business lending, eventually launching a completely automated small business lending product. Rivers keeps the promise by helping O'Malley spin out a bank technology company called Numerated, and secures a 25% equity share for Eastern. But by the time of the spin out, Rivers is reassessing the success of the effort. Did Rivers have the right intrapreneurship model? Did he change the culture at Eastern? Did he make a mistake spinning off Numerated into a separate company? What lessons can he learn for "Labs 2.0"?

• Innovation
• Corporate strategy
• Banks and banking
• Entrepreneurship
• Fintech