Independent Banker - February 2020 - 64

incorporated new data sources to help manage risk and
meet regulatory and audit requirements, and automated
the marketing process to help identify prospective
business customers.
The results were impressive: Growth in small business
lending increased fourfold, loan volume growth tripled and
increase in interest doubled.
In 2017, the project team spun out as Numerated
Growth Technologies, an independent, venture capitalbacked
company.
Eastern Labs 2.0
For Eastern Labs' next iteration, Eastern Bank brought
on Ashley Nagle Eknaian, now its senior vice president,
chief digital strategist and head of Eastern Labs. Under her
leadership, the community bank's vision expanded. The
lab works to explore new trends, engage employees and
accelerate the adoption of new technologies and digital
capabilities through experimentation, partnerships and
investment. Eknaian says they've found success because
" We were trying to disrupt
ourselves. We would rather do
it inside the bank than having
it done to us. "
-Bob Rivers, Eastern Bank
of the lab's focus on developing building blocks for
innovation and broad-based inclusion both inside and
outside of the community bank.
" Everyone has to come together, " she says. " It takes the
entire organization-corporate, legal, risk and compliance,
information security-not just a couple of people focused
on innovation. "
Eknaian engages team members to explore potential
projects and new fintechs. Vendors sometimes join
these meetings to give demonstrations and talk about
their products. Eastern Bank also runs popular in-house
innovation challenges.
To accelerate the adoption of new products and
solutions at Eastern Bank and build relationships in the
fintech ecosystem, the community bank partnered with
MassChallenge, a startup accelerator headquartered in
Boston with a strong fintech vertical.
64 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q February 2020
" When MassChallenge decided to start a fintech
vertical, we saw that as an opportunity to leverage the
MassChallenge brand to help accelerate the ecosystem, "
Eknaian says. " They can go out to their community on a
massive scale and bring vendors to us. "
Part of MassChallenge's appeal for Eastern Bank is
its " reverse pitch " approach, where partners, like the
community bank, define specific challenges or customer
pain points they would like to work with fintechs to solve.
Currently, Eastern Bank is piloting a program with
Pinkaloo, a company in Baltimore, Md., that enables
financial institutions to provide their retail and nonprofit
customers with charitable giving accounts.
In early 2019, Eastern Bank conducted about three
months of due diligence, which included evaluating use
cases, detailing components of the pilot program and
discussing integration with existing systems. It launched
the company's solution with a subset of customers in June
2019. The pilot program will go through several iterations
to assess and improve the customer experience and to
measure performance. Eastern Bank is unable to release
specific results because the pilot is still in the testing phase,
but results are encouraging.
" We want to extend our mission to our customers and
help them do what we do every day, " Eknaian says, " and we
want to help them do it faster and more securely through
our mobile banking app. "
1st National Bank of Scotia
John Buhrmaster, president and CEO of $490 million-asset
1st National Bank of Scotia in Scotia, N.Y., says partnering
with newer companies like fintechs requires a bit of a leap
from the community bank.
When his great-grandfather started the community bank
in 1923, robbery was its greatest threat. Tellers carried
guns to deter would-be robbers and participated in target
practice using a shooting range in the basement. You can
still see chips in the walls where the bullets struck.
Today, cybersecurity attacks are the most significant
threats banks face, Buhrmaster says.
" Our firewall is good, but it doesn't stop everything, " he
says. " We noticed suspicious emails getting through, and
we wanted to step up our efforts to ensure our staff was
made aware that they are a critical part of the final line of
defense against intruders. "
A conversation about the situation with the community
bank's chief information officer offered a lead: Leet Cyber
Security, a local startup. Leet focuses on cybersecurity
education, phishing testing and penetration testing that
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