Today Karen Mills, the former head of the Small Business Administration, published her new book, "Fintech, Small Business & The American Dream."
In the book, Karen discusses how we're at a transformational time in our economy, and puts forth her belief that fintech has the opportunity to alleviate pressure points in both lending and customer experience between banks and business owners. The winning financial institutions in this segment, she believes, will innovate to create "small business banks of the future."
With this theme, Karen tells the story of how Numerated's technology was originally developed within and for $11B Eastern Bank as part of their fintech incubator, Eastern Labs. She writes:
"Eastern Labs was seen as a success story, and other small banks started to take notice. If a 200-year-old mutual bank could innovate like this, perhaps they could, too. Or perhaps they could take a product like Numerated and integrate it into their existing systems."
Karen goes further to share the story of how we spun the technology out of Eastern to empower more banks to transform digitally. In Chapter 9, "A Playbook for Banks," she offers Numerated's platform and partnerships with banks as an example blueprint for how to innovate to better serve the business communities.
Our founder and CEO Dan O'Malley is quoted in the book, including his sharing that automated underwriting alone is not enough to serve this segment and thrive in a digital-first world. He shared:
"Real-time loan origination reduces back office costs but doesn't itself drive growth. Growth comes from automating sales in new channels."
Aligned with the book launch, the Boston Fintech Meetup—in collaboration with FinTech Sandbox and MassChallenge Fintech—is hosting Karen and Dan for a fireside chat in Boston on Thursday, April 11th at 6pm. Laura Alix, who leads regional and national bank coverage for American Banker, will moderate what promises to be a lively discussion on how fintech is transforming business banking and shaping a new era of entrepreneurship.
Seats are filling up fast, with 160+ people registered so far, and we hope to see you there! You can register for the free event here.
