M&T Bank embraces digital transformation with Blend

Discover how Blend’s Mortgage Suite empowered M&T Bank to digitize its workflows and reimagine its customer journey.

Blend

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Founded in 1856, M&T Bank is a top 20, full-service commercial bank by asset size, providing banking, investment, insurance, and mortgage financial services to more than 3.6 million consumer, business, and government clients.

With a long history of community-focused banking, M&T has always had a strong sense of purpose and commitment to serving its customers. Partnering with Blend has allowed them to give customers access to a digital mortgage application platform that is available 24/7.

“Before Blend, our mortgage experience was manual,” said Tim Frederick, Head of Mortgage Originations at M&T Bank. “You had to call a loan officer and talk to them over the phone, or meet with them at the branch or at your home and begin filling out the paperwork.”

M&T went live with Blend’s mortgage suite in 2018, marking the start of its digital transformation journey.

“Prior to adopting Blend, you had to do it the old fashioned paper way,” said Frederick. “We needed a way to serve our customers in a digital fashion. Now our customers can apply for a mortgage on a Saturday morning in their pajamas, even when they might not be able to get a hold of a loan officer.”
Tim Frederick
Head of Mortgage Originations

Leveraging productivity-enhancing tools

According to Frederick, an estimated 55% of M&T customers are applying for mortgages either outside of business hours or on the weekends. In a digital-first economy, consumers want to have the flexibility to bank from anywhere at any time – and that includes taking out a mortgage. Blend enables consumers to complete a self-serve, online application and follow a guided workflow to select home loan options. After confirming that they understand the associated costs in the process, Blend runs a credit check and an automated underwriting, resulting in a pre-approval letter for the eligible consumer.

M&T’s customers aren’t the only ones to benefit from the bank’s move to digital. Blend’s Loan Officer Toolkit was designed to enable Loan Officers to focus on building their business and managing their relationships by automating manual talks and providing all the tools they need in one place. This encompasses everything from starting applications, pulling credit, structuring loans, granting pre-approvals, and locking in rates within one end-to-end solution.

“The idea of giving loan officers a one-stop-shop to do the majority of their work is game-changing and has had a massive impact on our time savings. Our loan officers are shaving about 50% of the time it takes them to get a pre-approval out the door with Blend’s LO Toolkit.”
Tim Frederick
Head of Mortgage Originations

Blend has also helped M&T simplify the disclosure process. What was once a time-consuming and confusing experience that required borrowers to access multiple systems — often resulting in frustrating delays — is now streamlined within one single portal.

“Moving to Blend for disclosures was a big improvement on the customer experience side. Complaints dropped and completion rate improved after we adopted this feature.

Simplifying the customer journey

Above all, M&T values the customer experience. And at the end of the day, it’s all about converting borrowers from start to finish. M&T understands that achieving that is only possible when they are putting their customers first by offering a simple and intuitive mortgage experience.

The bank has received positive feedback from customers about how easy and quick the application process is. One of their favorite features is that once they log in, some of their information is already pre-populated in the system for them.

“Since implementing Blend, completion rates are multiple times higher than they ever were, we’ve drastically cut down on the time it takes for a pre-approval, and our Net Promoter Score has increased. And that’s because Blend makes the whole process easy. Applying for a mortgage is now as simple as applying for a credit card. Blend offers a great user interface, it’s intuitive, and it’s quick.”
Tim Frederick
Head of Mortgage Originations

A constantly evolving partnership

M&T’s commitment to adapting to the needs of its customers and providing the best experience possible aligns with Blend’s mission to make the homeownership journey easier, faster, and better.

“It’s incredible to find a company in our space that is investing time, money, and resources into designing a world-class customer experience that we likely wouldn’t have been able to successfully do on our own,” said Frederick. “What I appreciate about having a partner like Blend is that together, we are constantly pushing against the status quo and evolving the way we work and build as a team.”