Case Study: Navy Federal Credit Union achieves 23% reduction in manual reviews and hundreds of hours saved weekly with Blend

How one of the nation's largest credit unions dealt with unprecedented refinance volume

Navy Federal Credit Union, one of the nation’s largest credit unions with 10M+ members, faced an unprecedented refinance surge in 2020 — a tenfold increase in applications amid a sudden shift to remote work that overwhelmed loan processing. Rather than reallocate staff or hire quickly, Navy Federal turned to Blend and its mortgage automation tools to help manage the volume.

Blend implemented a suite of new features — including auto-decision logic and configurable minimum credit thresholds to reduce manual reviews — which cut the number of loans requiring manual review by 23%. Navy Federal estimated each avoided review saved about 30 minutes, totaling hundreds of hours saved weekly, enabling processors to focus on higher-value work and improving expected pull-through rates.

Navy Federal Credit Union

Randy Hopper

Senior Vice President of Mortgage Lending