Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. Bancorp have signed deals with mortgage software startup Blend Labs Inc. to move more of their loan applications online, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The five-year-old San Francisco firm is expected to announce its new customers Thursday along with a fresh $100 million fundraising round. The software from Blend offers the two giant lenders a chance to compete better against nimble fin-tech offerings such as Rocket Mortgage, the Quicken Loans Inc. product that has attempted to speed up the often-tedious mortgage application process. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank says that the latest changes could eventually take four or five days off the process, which now lasts roughly six weeks on average. The actual time to apply could eventually be sliced in half, says Tom Wind, president of U.S. Bank’s mortgage division.
