Differentiation Through Digital: Leader Bank's ZEscrow Advantage

Industry

Property Management

Challenge

Leader Bank needed to grow deposits and differentiate its offerings — without building more branches.

Results

As of April 2023, $260M in deposits, $85M in new commercial lending, and $116K in annual cost savings within the first years on ZEscrow.

Key Product

ZEscrow

www.leaderbank.com/

$260M

Total Deposits Held

$85M

New Commercial Lending

30%

Increase in Loan Amounts

Our relationships with landlords and property managers are stronger than ever. Once they start using ZEscrow and ZRent they come to us first for any of their other needs; money markets, CDs, new loans.

Marc Romvos

SVP of Business Banking, Leader Bank

About Leader Bank

Founded in 2002 in East Arlington, MA, Leader Bank is a community bank with a national reach and $4 billion in assets. Known for its entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to world-class service, the bank operates as a true one-stop shop for its clients' banking and lending needs — and has been repeatedly voted one of the best places to work in Massachusetts.

The Challenge

In 2015, Leader Bank faced two pressing problems. First, the bank needed to grow deposits quickly to fund loan growth, but didn't want to do so by building more branches. Second, they needed to differentiate their service offerings beyond the typical deposit and loan accounts in order to stay ahead of the competition. Manual processes and limited digital tools made it difficult to win and scale complex commercial relationships.

The Solution

After developing several products internally and spinning out the team as ZSuite Tech, Leader Bank deployed ZEscrow — a responsive web app for digital commercial escrow and subaccounting. ZEscrow integrates directly with their banking platform, supports a wide range of commercial entities, and provides a convenient, compliant, and full-featured subaccounting experience that differentiates Leader Bank from competitors.

The Results

By April 2023, Leader Bank had 2,376 commercial accounts and 26,952 subaccounts on the ZSuite platform, holding $260M in total deposits — $231M of which were directly attributable to ZSuite's functionality at a cost of funds of just 4.04%. Customers who adopted ZSuite products went on to generate $85M in commercial lending, and loan amounts grew 30% across both commercial and residential portfolios. On the operational side, the bank saved $116,000 annually in core processing fees and cut the time to open an escrow or subaccount by 20 minutes per account.