Case Study: Rural 1st achieves faster, mobile-friendly lending—cutting loan cycles by up to 5 days with Blend

Rural 1st's flexible and efficient platform for lending

Rural 1st, the consumer home‑lending arm of Farm Credit Mid‑America, needed a best‑in‑class digital lending experience that could plug into its homegrown LOS and CRM and serve a rural, mobile‑first customer base who are often apprehensive of online applications and apply outside normal business hours. After a careful vendor vetting process, Rural 1st selected Blend’s digital lending platform (white‑labeled for Rural 1st) to deliver a flexible, supportive consumer experience tailored to their customers’ needs.

Blend delivered a configurable, mobile‑friendly platform with borrower self‑service and data connectivity that consolidates documents and communications. The impact: first‑time borrowers can complete a Blend application in about 15 minutes, 52% of applicants now submit outside business hours and 39% via mobile/tablet, processors can manage 45 files, and loan cycles have been reduced by up to five days as Rural 1st moves toward an average 21‑day loan cycle—improving efficiency and borrower engagement.

Rural 1st

Daniel Brittain

Vice President of Enterprise Applications