Blend places its bets on ‘composable origination’ tech


In a margin-compressing environment, California mortgage tech firm Blend Labs is betting that its newly launched composable origination tech will help the firm recover from its financial losses. 

Available in its Blend Builder Platform, users can build their own origination products, leverage integrations, and use modular blocks to resolve the complexity of an existing technology infrastructure, the company said in an announcement about the launch on Tuesday.

Blend’s partners can take full advantage of composable origination through the Builder Platform, which provides pre-built integrations with all of the major tech stacks used in the financial services industry, including core banking systems, loan originations systems, customer relationship management and online banking platforms, Nima Ghamsari, Blend’s co-founder, explained.

“For business leaders looking to grow market share, deepen relationships and provide differentiated experience, composable origination provides the agility and speed you’ve always wanted to execute on your product strategies,” Ghamsari said.

The new composable origination tech provides a series of pre-built modular components, called blocks, for financial services. These blocks cover the entire end-to-end origination process, including pricing, income verification and closing, as well as an orchestration layer that allows lenders to create custom workflows in a low-code, drag-and-drop environment. 

In addition to the composable approach, Blend offers pre-built solutions, including instant home equity, deposit accounts and credit cards. These products are ready to use, with integration templates available that allow for quick deployment, Ghamsari noted. 

“With composable origination, leaders can supplement dev teams with easy-to-configure components across product lines and channels, all of which reduces costs and complexities, enabling rapid experimentation and delivery,” Blend said. 

Founded in 2012, Blend went public in 2021. The company’s white-label technology powers mortgage applications on the websites of major lenders, such as Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, as well as those for smaller and more traditional financial institutions across the country. 

The company has recently expanded its product set in two ways. One is by diving deeper into the broader homeownership journey to offer ways for applicants to find homeowners and title insurance. Blend also expanded to offer additional lending products, such as home equity, personal and auto loans. 

Blend has had its eyes fixed on transitioning from a multiple-point solution model to a single platform business. Ghamsari previously said it would allocate an increased portion of operating expenses into the software Blend Builder.

In its latest third-quarter earnings, Blend reported a loss of $133.98 million, which was driven by a decline in mortgage banking and its title insurance business revenue, despite its consumer banking revenue more than doubling from the same period in 2021. 

Blend will be reporting its fourth quarter and 2022 financial results on Thursday. 



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