A month after
The product, the first developed by the bank's Eastern Labs division, delivers working capital up to $100,000 to small-business owners within five minutes of applying. The loan application can be completed in a minute or two, but those needing a guarantee from the U.S. Small Business Administration must wait an additional two to three minutes for approval, the company said in a press release.
Speed is one reason small businesses have been turning to online and marketplace lenders rather than to banks for funding in recent years. Quicker decisions and funding could help depository institutions recapture that business.
-
The $9.6 billion-asset bank claims that applications for the loans can be completed in two minutes or less, or in three minutes for loans that require a Small Business Administration guarantee.
March 14 -
Eastern Bank's 18-month-old innovation unit, run by startup veterans, is preparing to release its first product as the industry continues to allocate resources to internal tech labs while wondering when and how such efforts will pay off.
October 28 -
Big banks with innovation labs see them as a way to improve the customer experience and to test new ideas in an industry facing disruption. Skeptics see potential for waste.
July 15
News of the possible licensing agreements was included in a press release to announce that the financial services research firm Celent named the $9.6 billion-asset Eastern Bank its Model Bank of the Year for 2016. The bank was picked specifically for the Express Business Loan.
"Eastern has accomplished a significant feat in building an entirely new loan origination system from scratch in 14 months, using internal resources, and showed game changing results on par with anything that the most disruptive fintech company has achieved in this space," Dan Latimore, senior vice president at Celent, said in the press release.
Eastern created the Labs in 2014 when it hired a team led by Dan O'Malley, who previously was chief executive of PerkStreet Financial, a card rewards startup that shuttered.
