Blend Labs integrates acquisition’s mortgage automation process
Earnings report reveals 46% YOY growth, banking clients
Fintech Blend Labs is integrating a title and escrow company it acquired June 30 into its platform as part of a push to automate the mortgage process, the company said on Thursday’s earnings call.
The San Francisco-based digital lending platform provided an update on the integration of Title 365, saying it was hitting milestones, from integrating Title 365’s leadership team and key staff members — to adding title escrow and settlement capabilities to its software services. Blend acquired Title 365 for $500 million two months ago.
The largest Title 365 customer and previous owner, mortgage originator and servicing company Mr. Cooper, is adopting Blend technology, said Blend co-founder and CEO Nima Ghamsari.
“As of early Q3, they [Mr. Cooper] expect to go live on Blend in the first half of 2022,” Ghamsari said. “As Mr. Cooper is the largest Title 365 customer, its adoption of Blend will facilitate migrating Title 365 legacy business to Blend software-enabled title, escrow and settlement services.”
The fintech also expects to launch pilots of the integrated Blend and Title 365 “experience” with a select group of mutual customers, he added.
On the heels of its June IPO, Blend reported second-quarter revenue of $32.1 million, up $10.1 million for 46% year-over-year growth. The company also reported $39.6 million in operations loss, compared with $20.8 million in 2020.
Total banking transaction volume was up 51% YoY.
The fintech, which was founded in 2012, serves 32 of the top 100 U.S. financial services firms by assets under management, up from 31 at the end of 2020, and 28 of the top 100 U.S. nonbank mortgage lenders, up from 24 at the end of 2020, Ghamsari noted on the call. Clients include the following financial institutions:
- The $181.1 billion KeyBank, which uses Blend’s mortgage solution;
- The $949.8 billion BMO Harris Bank, which uses Blend for personal loans;
- BECU, one of the largest credit unions in the U.S. with nearly 1.3 million members and $26.8 billion in assets as of 2020, which uses Blend’s consumer banking suite;
- The $2.4 billion Utah Community Credit Union, which also uses Blend’s consumer banking suite.
Blend [NYSE:BLND] shares were trading at $17.94 at 3:45 p.m. today, down 9.83% from market open.
