“What you do internally shows up externally.”

This week on Be Customer Led with Bill Staikos, we’re having a conversation with Ram Parimi, head of customer strategy & insights at Blend, a FinTech firm that focuses on bringing simplicity and transparency to financial services so more consumers can gain access to the world’s financial resources. Throughout the interview, we dive into what it means to be customer-first, how to adapt to market dynamics, how to cater to ever-evolving consumer expectations, the future of fintech, and more.

[00:32] Ram’s Journey – How Ram’s career, which started in music production, eventually evolved into customer strategy and the story of Blend and what they offer to their customers.

[04:03] Customer-first Approach – Ram dives into what a customer-first approach means in the fintech space and how Blend enables a customer-first experience.

[09:33] Industry Dynamics – Consumer lending space is changing rapidly, with lots of new players coming into the market with new innovative products. Ram shares his thoughts on how Blend is responding to these changes.

[15:19] Consumer Expectations – What the modern consumers expect from financial & banking services, and how the fintech space can prepare to cater to these consumers.

[20:02] The Future – Ram shares his takes on how the lending space may change in the next few years.

[26:17] leaders and Inspiration – Ram talks about his sources of inspiration and some of the leaders and inspiring personalities he looks up to.

Connect with Ram

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ramparimi

Website: www.blend.com

Disclosure:

This podcast contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements generally relate to future events, future performance or expectations and involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this podcast may include, but are not limited to, our expectations regarding our product roadmap, future products/features, the timing of new product/feature introductions, market size and growth opportunities, plans for future operations, competitive position, technological capabilities and strategic relationships. The forward-looking statements contained in this podcast are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from the outcomes predicted. Further information on these risks and uncertainties are set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this podcast are based on information available to Blend and assumptions and beliefs as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, Blend does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise.

Ram Parimi on Impacting the Lending Experience

[00:00:32] Bill Staikos: So Ram, thanks so much for coming on the show. So today we're talking about how blend is impacting the customer experience, but before we get into that, can you tell our listeners just your journey, differentiators in your career? What's your story then? Yeah, so

And what I learned through that was that I just loved being in front of people and a little bit maybe putting on a show and I decided, Hey, maybe, maybe I should give sales a shot. And so I come from the field. I, I spent a lot of time in the field. last 10 years. I really, really pivoted from being, an individual contributor to actually managing teams and revenue teams think a key inflection point for me in my career was actually this starting, as part of a founding team for social tables, where.

And I think that stuck with me for a long time, just to having that a little bit of that founding DNA, where it's not so much about the outcome, it's about the inputs that go along the way. Yep. And, and as blend scaled and during my time at Google, and, and even when Thomas Curian talks about all the time, it just, focus on the customer and the problem you're solving and, and back at blend now, the journey has been a hundred percent, focused around what value are we actually bringing to the customer in any conversation and are we prepared enough to do so?

And, and so tell us a little bit about blend does and the technology that you're doing and helping shape, the mortgage space, the lending space product. Yeah.

So you probably understand it from that perspective. In some, for us, we, we are really a part of the end to end journey for any banking. So we power that we started in mortgage. We're actually expanding much further into consumer finance. So, people around the world might know, understand like home equity might be different in other countries, but take out an auto loan or a personal loan or any type of loan.

Yep. We do not only the front end application experience, but also the back end, which is. Really the secret sauce and the hard part, if you will, the pipes, which is rather than running around with a bunch of paper documents, we leverage structured source data. and what that means for borrowers and lenders is that they get a better experience.

They get a faster turnaround times and more transparency and more certainty. And that's pretty important as, when you're going in for a loan, you probably need the money. Yeah. And if you need the money, it's good to know you're gonna get it or not. And I think that's. how, consumers today, want to see transactions happen and they're asking for it faster than they've ever asked for it before.

But from a broader FinTech perspective, what does it mean to be customer first? Like what, like what does it feel like from a cultural perspective, maybe even cause you guys really are there. And I know that cause I know the company's super well, but what do you think that means?

We have to think through it from the perspective, how does that then translate to a better borrower experience? So I think there's a lot of thoughts around this topic and I don't think we've, totally figured it out. We're going through this journey, but from a cultural point of view, putting it the CU the customer at the center of any decision, that decision starts as early as thinking through what product would even make sense to build.

And how does that product get built in a way that delivers value at the outset. And then having that DNA think through, we firmly believe in first principles, which. It's thinking, what are the inputs that actually deliver value and think to the depth of the product and build from that depth perspective.

Because if we think about what the user is experiencing in our world, it's the loan team, but how that loan team is interacting with the borrower. It's also something we have to think through. So you see that not only in our design, but our experiences. And I think it's, it's really thinking through the idea that in today's world, it's also rethinking.

What is a definition of a customer and a borrower. And so in the past customer first might have meant, yeah, you go see your friend, your friend refers you another friend, and, and you you're interacting with that person. And you're creating a great relationship today. Borrowers are much more diverse than they were.

10 15, 20 years ago. A good example is, we always thought of W2 was the only way to find a, a qualified borrower today. That could be a gig employee. Yep. Right. So I think rethinking the definition of borrower is also an important part. And having that be something that is continuously rethought annually in, in a lot of ways, And then even further, as, as, as there's a greater population of immigrants in this country and not all of them have 10 years of credit history yep.

To make a financial, transaction. So as we become more of a globalized economy, it's also rethinking like, what are those, those rules that we put into place that say like, this is what a qualified borrower means and expanding that pool to reach more people in a way that, allows them to grow into being a qualified borrower or qualifies them in a way that they were otherwise not qualified

Yeah, I know in the us least sort of the FICO score was sort of the barometer by which, what rate you might receive on a, on a different loan. I know a lot of that is starting to change and evolve as well, which is critically important as a renter myself, we were homeowners in the past, but as a renter myself, I'd love it.

If my bank looked at the fact that we paid our rent every month and it was at a certain amount before, so eventually we'll buy again. But nonetheless, like that should all be taken account, five, 10 years ago. They never would've looked at that history as an example.

If you're making your credit card payment, monthly, car loan, payment, monthly, but those add up to pretty big numbers that could probably help you understand if they're qualified for a mortgage or not. Yeah.

Organizations are taking a first principles approach and asking those questions. How does that then manifest into a platform like blend? Right? Because at the end of the day, right, you're not just serving the lenders out there, you're serving the broader sort of borrowing community and, and consumer base.

Right.

And how it plugs in really for, if we think about like, what does it mean to be pro, to be customer led in, in the future, it's being able to anticipate your borrower's needs and then serving them the right products and prices of those products in a proactive manner that allows them to plan and, and think about you as a lender, as a strategic kind of guidance, rather than just a loan officer or a.

Or a bank. I think the institution now has to move into being more of their, I don't know their, their financial planning arm. And I think there's a confluence that's happening right now. In general in FinTech of what is the accountant? What is the financial planner? What is the loan officer? All these three are all playing a role, but, today's borrower is looking for someone they can trust and, and someone who can anticipate their needs.

I think that's how it manifest. That's how blends thinking about it is we've used a term proactive finance, as, as NEMA said, we didn't come up with that term ourselves, but it's, it's done by putting lenders in a better position to understand their customer. And then allowing them to use that understanding to then guide them on their financial journey.

So from a pure transactional point of view, I think one way blend demonstrates it is, from like a pricing perspective is we only get paid when our lenders use our product. And I think as you've seen from probably a number of other companies that you all work with and you, you work with in the past that, that success based model puts everybody on the same playing field and, and that's been a huge win for us.

And we were pretty early on it. We were doing that in 20 15, 20 16, 20 17. And, I think that's really led to a, a more, let's just say,meaningful experience for us, our lenders and our, and, borrowers.

as an enabler of the experience, particularly in the lending space Ram, which is just really going UN undergoing a tremendous amount of change right now, you've got a lot of different sort of point solution players coming in at different parts of the process mortgage industry.

And maybe we just focus on, on mortgage as, as an example, just first here, how do you think about the changes and the dynamic that's happening in that space and lenders really trying to get the cost to serve our cost per loan down significantly help our listeners maybe understand like the dynamics of, of that space a little bit.

And then I want to get into maybe how you guys are trying to solve that.

Yeah. And I think that the reality is that. We need to move to a world in my opinion, humble opinion that where people collaborate more with the customer in mind. Yeah. And think about how their platform connects to the next platform that our, that institution is. Is purchasing and how that together they can deliver a better experience than on their own.

Yeah. And I think it, that kind of mindset for tech vendors is going to be the difference maker, whether or not they, they end up being, budgeted for five, 10 years from now. And I think with that, you'll probably see those that figure it out. And those that don't, and those that don't, will probably be left out of the end to end journey.

And those that do will probably be a part of that end to end journey for a long, long term. But that's kind of what is necessary to move the needle mm-hmm or we never get to proactive finance, right. We never get to borrow experiences that lead to more referrals and repeat business. And we never get to the real exciting piece, which is a, each interaction point is a set of data, data points.

And if we can help lenders understand how to leverage those data points to then create those proactive anticipatory experiences for, for borrowers mm-hmm that, that goes a long way.

Your perspective, even as, you're someone who's steeped in the industry. Right? So like, your, your perspective broadly even would be really interesting. Yeah.

And I think what you'll start seeing is, an opportunity for people to rethink their distribution, their operations, and their entire engagement model. And I think that as we both know, from being a part of successful tech companies that starts from within, right, like what you do internally shows up externally.

And I think that's what's happening right now is there's, a mindset at the lender. Which is triggered by industry dynamics. So like what, how can we use technology to better power our intern, our people's decisions and, and maximize their time and what that looks like? I think in a lot of ways is to help lenders go back to being this trusted guidance for borrowers mm-hmm and focusing more on education.

A good example, bill, just to be, bring it, to real life. I think there's the most home equity in people's homes in the history of the humankind least in the United States. It's off the chart. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that actually extends to Canada as well. And I think it might extend other countries like Australia and UK.

I'm not exactly sure, but there's a lot of equity built up just by sheer nature that we've had baby boomers by homes 30 years ago that are fully paid off. And the home prices as have skyrocketed over those 30 years. So. but the lack of education on what a home equity line of credit is, or a home, he loan is mm-hmm is what scares people from making the decision?

Like, why would I, and I worked so hard to pay this, to gain this equity. Why would I give any of it up? Yeah. But there's. In some cases for some borrowers, it's actually better to do that than do another loan product. And they can use that to help fix their home up or yeah. Or, or do other things that they've been waiting to do for dozens of years.

And I think that is really the, the critical point we're in right now is where these, where lenders who are oftentimes, and I understand are driven by incentive models in a, in a as well in margin. can be empowered to think through this opportunity, which is, which is education, borrower education. And as you and I both know, we, I intend to gravitate to someone over and over again when they teach me something.

Sure. And, and when I'm learning and I don't know everything about a personal, even though I'm in the business, I don't at top of my head, I can't tell you all the difference between a personal loan, a home equity line of credit, and then doing another type of loan. Yeah. an unsecure. And I think the reality is that I could use some help.

And I think that is the truth for every American, we can get into a philosophical argument about when we, whether or not we should do this in high school or not, but we're not, we're not teaching finance in high school. So, I think who's, I think they could, every, every American could probably use some education.

I think now is a time.

Really start to have not only lending work in their favor to drive and create wealth. Right? Cause like who would've thought like, Hey, I'm gonna borrow money. Well, not everyday consumers. Right? Think about, I'm gonna borrow money to create wealth down the line. Mm-hmm not necessarily a conversation. A lot of people have.

But to your point, if you think about sort of that home equity loan, you can leverage that equity in your house to drive new wealth in different ways. Even as simple things like I'm gonna go pay for an education, right. That could have bigger, long term benefit down the road. Right. I totally agree. And that time invested not only by the consumer, but also the lender does create sort of that long term trust and bond, which is so critical.

We forget a lot, I guess now, or we, maybe we focus too much on is the digital experience great or is the in branch experience great. But at the end of the day, are you helping these individuals create value in their life outside of. Broader financial services realm, or do you understand that ecosystem where financial services can drive that growth for them too?

And I think a few things, I think we can make it easier on our tech partners to really understand what that looks like. And I think as I've said to many people in the past, It's not a one way street, right? I think a lot of times tech companies put in this position, you buy me and I, I, I implement you and you do it.

It's not that way. Especially at this level, when we're impacting this set of, we have this type of impact. It's really a two way street between us and our lender partners and thinking through change management. Inside an institution is the only way to get there because that individual has been conditioned to do something for the last five years.

That is totally different now. And that, that rapid growth of technology, purchasing also leads to technology implementation rapidly growing. And that means people are being overwhelmed by a number of things that are thrown on their plate. They have to also do their job, not just learn the tech.

And so how can we help them, be in a better position to. Not only learn the technology, but use it in a way that's actually, it doesn't feel like it's a separate activity. It's just part of their normal work business

There are a lot, I, the one thing that I really try and counsel, clients that I talk to, or just leaders that are out there in the, in this space and, either they're starting off in CX or, they're leading a larger small team. Really think about, can you find one person, whether in your organization or have them on your team to, to, to be that sort of that change agent and, and apply actually like a rigorous change management approach to the work?

Is that something that you all are focusing on and how do you, does it manifest in the technology from a simplicity and ease of use? Is that how you're kind of driving change at the usual level? Or are there different ways maybe to explore.

Right? Mm-hmm so it's in our like lender loan team. Execution. Yeah. and so we have to build with that in mind and we have to deploy with that in mind, and we have to sell with that in mind. And we have to then, enable our customers through education and think about our customer community. We, we think through that a lot, which we just recently launched.

And I think the reality is that change management is now is, is a hu for the last, year or two has been something we've focus a lot, a lot on. And it's in lockstep with the idea that we have more to offer to our lenders. So as we offer more and as any institution offers more, we have to think through how that all leads to, to better usage of those tools.

So it does doesn't sit on the shelf and. And I think that's the way I would, we've been thinking about it is not, it's not a thing you do after you as part of go to market. Yeah. The thing you do at the thing as a way you build and design products before, and then you execute that and go to market.

Awesome.

[00:20:29] Ram Parimi: Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know, three to five years is enough time or not, but let's just, let's just, and I think the ideal state for. For us, like for us as consumers. Yeah. It's the same as it is for lenders, which is that we are able to purchase any product and have our, and be qualified pre-qualified without having to go through the motions we go through today.

Yeah. And what that means, a lot of people can, you can, you can say that's like an Uber experience for lending, or you can create all different types of terms for. But, but the reality is it's a little bit more complex in ordering a car to your, doorstep. But I think a few things come to mind.

One, we should have a greater pool of borrowers. Like I talked about earlier that are qualified. So the, the pool should grow. That should be a big part of the next three to five years. Secondarily that pool should be, engaged in a way that isn't a, a, a push relationship. It should be a push pull. Mm-hmm

I think that's happened in digital marketing over the course of the last five, 10 years that needs to be brought to consumer finance is like that. The idea of that, like it, it's a two way dialogue between me just like actually healthcare has gotten there recently with me talking to my doctor. I can book everything on the, do everything on an app.

Yeah. And I think that opportunity is there for lenders and is growing in the next three to five. I think beyond that, it's, it's anticipating, I think all those things, what it does is we can better anticipate borrows needs. We can reach them before they need a good example is, let's just say for me, 13, 14 years from now when my four and a half month old, because gets, it gets get ready to go to college.

I wanna even start thinking about college loads. Someone should help me think about the preparation for that. What my levers are to get there much earlier than 16 or 17 years ago, or even 14 years from now, they should be preparing me for that. In the next few years. Yeah. And I think that is the future of lending and AA is where I am now embedded into their world and they're embedded into my world and we understand each other fully.

And, and we're, we're both working in lockstep to achieve, each other's goals, which is for them have a lifetime customer. And for me, be a lifetime, have a lifetime bar, a borrowing experience that I enjoy.

Whatever your behavioral operational data is, how are lenders using, whatever information I'm giving them to get smarter about being proactive and to, to go drive that conversation, whether that's machine to human or human, to human for that matter. Do you think then, as you think about the relationships between the consumer and the lender, do you think we're gonna start to see more of, I'm gonna start using fewer.

Lenders or start thinking about using fewer lenders, but I will give out more of my information so that proactive finance can happen in more of a real time basis. Or do you think it's gonna be, and I think about this a lot, I'm a real dork about it, to be honest, but like, could I tokenize my information and say, I can turn it on off and on, based on what's happening in my life, to be able to go out to lenders.

To for me to get sort of the best rate or for me to get sort of the best deal and the relationship doesn't even matter. Right. It doesn't matter. Yeah. But I can give out my information to make sure that I'm just getting the best deal no

Which one of these is earned trust yet. Like we can take the web three argument. I'm not sure, we, we really understood it or, or we're ready to say we, we trust it fully. Yeah. The same thing is for borrowers to say, I don't know if I fully understand or trust a single institution to do all these things for me.

Yeah. And I think what, where we're at right now is that inflection point. Oh. Where borrowers will make the decision, not lenders. Yeah. And not any decentralized finance arm. I think it's really all. In borrowers, are, are waiting to see what gets brought to them and they'll make decisions. A good example.

a good example that I I've seen is you've seen chase, for example, in a lot of ways they've gone above and beyond to embed you with their Sapphire reserved, benefits along with a better banking relationship. And overall, I feel like it's just, and when I'm a warriors fan, so I go to the chase center.

Do both. We can create pricing power for lenders by helping them use technology to actually improve their margins. And then where everybody might have the same rates at some point, or be close enough. Mm-hmm and if they're close enough, you'll choose service. We're coming into a world where service and technology will both be equally important.

Mm-hmm and what I mean by that is that sure rates need to be competitive, but if they're within a certain margin, like a small margin, A Costa, our borrower will still choose the better service because they trust that more. And over the lifetime 0.1, two, 5% doesn't really mean that much when you can trust somebody,

and, and rocket, by the way, traditionally has always been higher rates. Yeah. And that's cause of their service model. they've been able to do.

And you do have to pay for that on some level. Hey Ram, I've got two more questions for you who do one is who do you look up to? an industry like who are like the big sort of, whether they're tech leaders or industry leaders, like who are the folks that whenever you see them in a press or maybe an article.

Who do you like, Hey, I gotta go read that.

Thomas I've worked with a little bit in, in my lifetime and I think that between the two of them, what I find really inspiring is their just their kind. And their empathy towards customers. And it just comes across that they're just naturally that just embedded in who, who they are, but their passion to win.

Yeah. And, and seen his MEIC rise at fifth third bank. And he's been someone that's been that I've watched from afar and has really been someone who's inspiring. He's he's young. He, he thinks about not only the community of Cincinnati a lot, but he is also a huge adopt of technology and willing to make, changes that help drive better borrower experience.

And I think that's been pretty cool to see.

Like you, you don't have to just completely wow. The customer at the expense of the business that doesn't make any sense. So a lot of people think that they might need to. Ram. I'm curious, where do you go for inspiration? Like what fills your cup up?

As my wife will say, like I I'm, I love talking to, people on the phone, which is maybe a, 20 2005 activity. But, but I get a lot of inspiration from talking to friends who are doing interesting things in technology and doing interesting things in general, whether it be art, music, et cetera, film.

And I think there's a lot to learn just from the, from osmosis. That's, that's like an easy, in, in the real world, I think in the digital world, I, I'm a huge fan. LinkedIn and Twitter for as an aggregator of all, knowledge and I, and there's a lot of great, dialogue that happens on those median.

And then yeah, at a more, local level. I, I, I choose to use, certain blogs or whatever. And I, I read a lot of these, I, these news articles, but I think, I think there's nothing more you can learn by actually. Talking to people who are interested in, in the same things that you are. And because they might be on the same medium as me, but they pick up something differently than I do from that same article.

And I think that's, what's in that's. What's exciting. Yeah.

It's been a great learning and growth hack for me. I can't like if, if I can call out one thing about doing a podcast, that's been sort of like the, the most incredible thing Ram. This is one great to see you. This has been a great conversation. I truly appreciate you coming on the show and dropping some knowledge on us and talking about sort of the, what blend is doing in, in the tech space, for lenders and making experiences better every day.

Thanks so much for your time.

[00:30:15] Bill Staikos: Absolutely. All right, everybody. Another great show. We're out. Talk to you soon, everyone. Thanks

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