East Boston Savings Bank has been one of the fastest-growing banks in Massachusetts, and with new savings from tax reform, it continues full steam ahead.

The bank intends to build six branches in 2018, and increase 2017 bonuses for its 500 employees by 20 percent, bringing the total 2017 bonus package up to $5.5 million, said Richard J. Gavegnano, chairman, president and CEO of Meridian Bancorp and its subsidiary EBSB.

Gavegnano also said the bank would increase its minimum wage to $15 per hour, and target $1 million in charitable donations in 2018.

“It’s a shot in the arm for us,” Gavegnano told Banker & Tradesman, referring to tax reform. “It’s a spark accelerating our strategic plan from two years into one, and has just activated our enthusiasm.”

Two of the six branches are accelerate; four of were planned before tax reform.

Banker & Tradesman in August reported two of those branches, one slated for 1614 Tremont St. in Mission Hill, the current site of a Bank of America branch, and the other planned for 1952-1956 Beacon St. in Brighton, EBSB’s first branch in that neighborhood.

EBSB in November announced another two branches planned for 2018 in Lynnfield and West Peabody.

The 2,300-square-foot Brighton branch and the West Peabody branch, situated between Peabody, where the bank already has a branch, and Lynnfield, will likely open in the first quarter of this year, Gavegnano said. The 3,400-square-foot Tremont Street branch and the one in Lynnfield will likely open in the second quarter.

The two newly announced branches are planned for Watertown and Davis Square in Somerville, he said.

An expansion campaign is nothing new for the company, which had only 12 branches in 2009.

As of the third quarter of 2017, EBSB had 32 branches, according to FDIC data, not including the two branches it just picked up in Dorchester and Roslindale after completing its acquisition of Meetinghouse Bank.

The strategy seems to be paying off. The bank grew total assets by nearly $930 million year-over-year as of Sept. 30, 2017, not including the $118 million assets it will receive from the Meetinghouse Bank acquisition. It surpassed $5 billion in assets as of that date.

Net income for the third quarter of 2017 was $13.3 million, up almost $4 million from the third quarter of 2016.

“If we grow from $1 billion in assets 10 years ago to over $5 billion now, our average growth is 18 percent a year compounded annual growth,” said Gavegnano. “Loans are growing 24 percent per year. I guess that is a pretty good answer as why we continue to grow the bank [with branches]. We are growing in areas not represented with community banks. Our growth is all organic, started from the ground up.”

The news from EBSB comes on the heels of other tax reform related announcements by HarborOne Bank and Citizens Bank.

HarborOne Bank announced it would implement a $15 per hour minimum wage and provide a one-time $500 bonus to more than 600 employees of the bank and its mortgage lending subsidiary, Merrimack Mortgage Co.

Citizens announced a one-time $1,000 cash bonus to 12,500 employees below a certain compensation threshold, covering over 70 percent of the company’s workforce. The company also announced $10 million to the Citizens Charitable Foundation.