EverBank Financial Corp. today scored a valuation multiple of nearly 22x earnings in its sale to TIAA.

No wonder the EverBank executive team said it was “excited” about the deal.

That multiple (21.67x to be exact) will translate into a sale price of about $2.5 billion, when the deal finally closes, most likely in early 2017. That’s a 26% premium to where shares traded in advance of takeover rumors last week.

The premium to earnings is above the average multiple of 19.1x that acquired financial services companies got in the first quarter of 2016, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers data. In comparison, the Top 20 banks are trading at an average of 10.5x forward earnings.

Why did EverBank merit the premium? It would appear that EverBank’s innovation orientation had at least something to do with it.

TIAA lauded in its official announcement EverBank’s “innovative and forward-thinking approach to banking that offers its clients superior tools and opportunities to understand, manage and grow their money.” EverBank mainly uses digital channels to market and distribute its banking products and services.

As stodgy as it might seem, TIAA is actually a relatively innovative financial services company, one that is willing to aggressively try new digital services.

TIAA said it will slot EverBank as “an integral part” of its Retail Financial Services business, which offers banking and lending core services to TIAA’s more than 5 million members and 16,000 institutional clients.

EverBank had about $27.4 billion of assets at the end of last quarter. EverBank stock [ticker: EVER] is trading 2.71% higher at 2:39 pm ET today.