Honoring leaders pushing the boundaries of banking and lending, from agentic AI in production to unified experiences across every line of business.

Blend Labs, Inc. (NYSE:BLND), a leading digital origination platform for banks, credit unions, and mortgage lenders, today announced the winners of its Best in Banking Awards, presented onstage at Forum 2026, Blend’s annual customer conference.

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From left to right: Patrick Joyce, Onity; Sri Aravamudan, BCU; Hitesh Vyas, BMO; Nima Ghamsari, Blend; Meredith Howerth, Huntington National Bank; Cris Daly, Langley Federal Credit Union; and Brad Bremer, Frost Bank, who accepted the award on behalf of Katie Keating.

These awards recognize the people whose work is raising the bar for the entire industry. Across seven institutions, this year's winners built unified experiences across lines of business, co-developed integrations, and put new agentic capabilities into production early. Together, they reflect the way Blend has long built its platform: closely with its customers.

"Some of the best solutions we've built at Blend have come from working side by side with customers who are willing to push the boundaries of what the banking experience can be," said Nima Ghamsari, co-founder and Head of Blend. "They bring us real-world complexity, challenge us to make the product better, and help us understand what will actually work in production."

The 2026 Best in Banking Award winners

Innovator of the Year

Colin Friday, SVP of Consumer Lending, and Patrick Joyce, Vice President of Digital Products and Design, Onity Mortgage

As early adopters of both Rapid and Autopilot, Blend's agentic system, Colin Friday, Patrick Joyce, and the Onity Mortgage team’s insights have been instrumental in helping shape Blend's product roadmap. The Onity team is now building its own AI-powered customer service experiences on Blend's MCP Server. Autopilot has now worked on nearly 50,000 real loans, and Onity's candid, real-world production feedback across multiple product lines exemplifies the kind of customer collaboration that helps Blend refine new technology before bringing it more broadly to market.

Ecosystem Expander Award

Katie Keating, Executive Vice President, Director of Consumer Products and Strategy, and team, Frost Bank

By scaling Blend across four major lines of business, Frost Bank has set a benchmark for building a unified, multi-product consumer experience. The results of that approach are clearest in the bank's newest expansion: since launching Blend for deposit account opening, Frost has increased account application completions by 60%, cut manual review requirements from 15% to 3%, and reduced account opening to as little as six to seven minutes.

Connected Innovation Award

Sri Aravamudan, Sr. Director of New Member Digital Transformation, BCU

Sri Aravamudan consistently pushes the boundaries of what is possible with Blend, offering BCU as a launchpad for new partner integrations and driving ambitious timelines for go-live execution. With Blend, BCU has lifted conversion rates on deposit account openings from 40% to 60% and more than doubled its start-to-submit rate for member applications. Beyond his work inside BCU, Aravamudan regularly shares what he has learned with peer credit union leaders, helping extend the impact of that innovation across the broader financial ecosystem.

Digital Experience Excellence Award

Meredith Howerth, Consumer Banking Digital Director, Huntington National Bank

Meredith Howerth sits at the helm of a large, multi-line digital ecosystem at Huntington, turning complex, cross-functional roadmaps into intuitive consumer journeys. Her hands-on technical leadership and sharp, constructive feedback not only elevate Huntington's platform, but actively help shape and refine Blend features used by financial institutions across the industry.

Operational Velocity Award

Cris Daly, Digital Product Manager, Langley Federal Credit Union

Cris Daly is the operational engine behind Blend initiatives at Langley Federal Credit Union, turning complex roadmaps into reality. From driving four major product rollouts in a single year to proactively clearing project blockers, Daly has helped Langley move from strategy to production with speed. With Blend, Langley has grown new digital deposit account openings by 37%, while contact center intervention on approved applications fell from 32% to 7%.

Deposit Pioneer Award

Chris Mayo, AVP of Digital Banking, and team, Delta Community Credit Union

Delta Community Credit Union went beyond adopting Blend to become a close co-innovation partner in building a more unified platform for deposit account opening and loan origination. The team continues to push the boundaries of digital onboarding, with a focus on creating a seamless, top-of-wallet member experience across products.

Scale and Synergy Award

Hitesh Vyas, Senior Technology Officer, BMO

Hitesh Vyas and the BMO team charted new territory by co-building a direct, middleware-free integration between Blend and their LOS. In solving a complex technical challenge for BMO, the team unlocked meaningful operational efficiencies and created a cleaner, more scalable integration blueprint that can benefit other same LOS users across Blend's customer base. It is the kind of co-built solution that compounds across the platform: one customer's hard problem becomes infrastructure for hundreds of institutions.

The Best in Banking Award winners accepted their awards onstage at Forum 2026 on Wednesday, August 26.

Hundreds of banks, credit unions, IMBs, and servicers run on Blend today. $1.3 trillion in loan applications flows through the platform every year, including 1 in 6 U.S. mortgages. That scale is the product of 15 years of building alongside lenders, with customers testing new capabilities in real production environments, surfacing hard operational and technical problems, and providing direct feedback to product teams.

About Blend

Blend Labs, Inc. (NYSE:BLND) is a leading origination platform for digital banking solutions. Financial providers, from large banks, fintechs, and credit unions to community and independent mortgage banks, use Blend’s platform to transform banking experiences for their customers. Learn more at blend.com.

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