Borrower experience with Blend Income

Blend aims to power income verification needs of lenders across the Blend platform. With multiple data providers, Blend provides a fully integrated single solution with greater coverage and a consistent experience leveraging an array of strategies to verify income and employment.

• Borrower Consent for Blend Income
• Instant Lookup Workflow
• How borrowers can review Blend Income's Instant Lookup information
• Login-Based Provider Workflow
• MyPay (Military Pay) Integration
• Waterfall to The Work Number (TWN)
• Non-Sharing Co-Borrower Experience with Blend Income
• Sharing Co-Borrower Experience with Blend Income

Note:

• The Blend Income workflow described in this article applies to lenders with Blend Income enabled. If you’re interested in Blend Income please reach out to your Blend account team.
• The use of browser pop-ups and third-party cookies is required for Blend Income to work properly.

Borrower Consent for Blend Income

Borrowers will be asked to review our consumer report consent terms and agree before running Blend Income. Consent terms will be displayed along with Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, or other consents during account creation.

If lenders have enabled upfront credit consent in addition to Blend Income, the consent terms will be available when clicking the Credit and Consumer Report Consent hyperlink. For lenders who do not have upfront credit enabled, the hyperlink will say Income Data Authorization.

Lenders configured with consumer Single Sign On (cSSO) or Delayed Account Creation (DAC), these consents will appear at the bottom of the Getting Started milestone during the application. For all other lenders, borrowers will see the consent terms on the sign-up page.

Instant Lookup Workflow

Blend Income’s Instant Lookup workflow attempts to find a borrower’s income and employment information using the borrower’s Social Security Number (SSN) and Date of Birth (DOB). Borrowers will enter this in the Getting to Know You section of the application. If the hit is successful, Blend will generate a report in the Documents tab of the borrower's home, and in the Docs tab of the lender application.

When borrowers reach the Income section of the application, they will see a pre-fill screen that summarizes the income and employment information that was received from the Instant Lookup hit.

How borrowers can review Blend Income's Instant Lookup information

Borrowers can review Blend Income's Instant Hit information for accuracy. If the information is correct, they can simply click Agree and proceed to continue with the rest of the application. If the information is incorrect, they can remove the employer from the results.

1. Click View annual income summary in the employer card to open up a dialog that will show employment and income information for the last 2 years.
   
2. If the information is incorrect, borrowers can click Remove to remove the employer from the results.
   

To continue with the application, borrowers can click Agree and proceed if all the information is accurate and up to date. If the results were removed accidentally, borrowers can click Undo to add them back.

If Blend Income results are removed, borrowers will be able to manually enter income and employment information. Borrowers will have the opportunity to edit any employment and/or income information before submitting the application.

Note: These changes are not reflected in the Blend Income Report but are exported as part of the 1003. This allows lenders to compare the borrower-stated employment and income information to the 3rd party sourced employment information.

Login-Based Provider Workflow

Our Login-Based Provider workflow allows borrowers to search for and log in to their providers’ payroll services to populate the employment and income data.

Note:

• Income that is retrieved from our Login-Based Provider workflow is not D1C or AIM certified at this time.
• Pop-ups are required for login-based provider workflow.

When borrowers reach the Income section of the application, they will be presented with the income source selection screen.

If the borrower chooses Employment, the next screen will explain that the borrower can securely link their payroll account to automatically import income and employment information, saving more time than entering this manually.

If the borrower clicks I’d rather add details manually they will be asked to enter employment information manually.

If the borrower clicks Connect your income information they will see a pop-up dialog where they can search for their employer.

Note: Blend's data provider controls the options that appear in each tab and cannot be edited.

When borrowers select an employer, they will be asked to enter their login information. If borrowers cannot remember their passwords, they will be able to use the “Forgot password?” link to reset their passwords for their payroll provider from this screen. They can also review terms of use and privacy policy information from this login page.

Once the borrower successfully logs in, the sign-in dialog will disappear, and the application will show a summary of the employer and income data.

Borrowers can click View annual income summary to see more details. If borrowers click Remove the income will not be added to their application, and a Blend Income report will not be generated for this income. Clicking Continue will add the income to the Summary page.

A Blend Income report will be generated at this time and will be available in the Documents tab of the borrower portal, and the Docs tab of the lender application.

If borrowers wish to edit income information, they'll have the ability to do so on the next screen.

Borrowers can click Edit to make changes to the existing information. To include additional income, borrowers can click Yes, add more income.

To proceed with the application borrowers can click No, continue”

MyPay (Military Pay) Integration

Blend Income supports an integration with MyPay that will allow borrowers who are receiving income from the military to connect to their MyPay account.

Note:

• Income derived from the MyPay integration is not D1C or AIM certified at this time.
• Lenders must have the Login-Based Provider workflow enabled in their environments to use Blend Income’s MyPay integration for military income.

In the Getting Started section of the application, borrowers will be asked if they are an active military personnel, a veteran, or surviving spouse. If borrowers move the slider from “No” to “Yes,” they will see additional fields asking for more information about their status.

Note: If a borrower chooses “Surviving Spouse” as their current military status, they will be sent down the same paths as a non-military borrower (e.g. any of the borrower workflows outside of this section of the guide). This is because surviving spouses do not have access to MyPay. Income received from the military due to being a surviving spouse should be entered as an annuity rather than attempting to log in through MyPay or log it as Military Pay.

Borrowers will proceed through the rest of the application and when they reach the Income section, they will be asked if they would like to add their military income.

If borrowers click Add military income details they will see another page directing them to securely link to their payroll provider, in this case, MyPay.

Clicking Connect your employment data will open a login popup asking for the borrower's MyPay username and password.

After the borrower logs in and the connection is successful, the application will show a preview of pre-filled income for the borrower to review.

Borrowers can click View annual income summary to see a breakdown of income for the current year and the past two years.

If borrowers click Remove the income will not be added to their application, and a Blend Income report will not be generated for this income.

Clicking Continue will add the income to the Summary page.

Note: Borrowers can only add military income through our MyPay integration only once. If they click on “Military Pay” after they have already added pre-filled military income, they will need to add that additional military income/employment information manually.

If borrowers have accepted the pre-filled military income, they will see a Blend Income Verification report in the Documents tab of the borrower portal. Additionally, they will see Military Leave and Earnings Statements (LES). Blend will return up to six LES in production environments, however, lenders may notice more than six in lower (beta or sandbox) environments.

Lenders will also see the Blend Income Verification report and all generated LESes in the Docs tab of the lender application. These documents will have the doctype MILITARY_LES.

Note: In some instances, MyPay may return “Defense Finance & Accounting Services” (DFAS) as the company name in their responses. In those cases, the Blend Income report and the application will display DFAS as the Employer Name rather than the military branch.

Waterfall to The Work Number (TWN)

If lenders have both Blend Income and TWN enabled in their environment, Blend Income will be attempted first. If Blend Income is unsuccessful, TWN will be attempted when the borrower submits their application.

Non-Sharing Co-Borrower Experience with Blend Income

If a borrower is applying with a co-borrower and indicates that their information should be kept separate, the standard process for the borrower application and income verification will be similar to the single borrower flow as noted above.

After the primary borrower enters the non-sharing co-borrower information, the co-borrower will receive an email with a link where they can start the application on their own. Both the borrower and co-borrower will experience the same flow through their own applications, with successful hits pre-populating income and employment information when they reach the Income section.

A Blend Income report will be generated for both the primary borrower and co-borrower if Blend Income is successful. The reports will be available in the borrower portal's Documents tab and the lender application's Docs tab. For non-sharing co-borrowers, each borrower will only have access to their own reports.

Sharing Co-Borrower Experience with Blend Income

For co-borrowers who agree to share personal and financial information, Blend attempts to pre-fill the income and employment information in the application for both borrowers in the same workflow experience.

When the primary borrower reaches the Income section, the borrower and co-borrower will need to enter income information one at a time. The first screen in the Income section asks which person’s income to add first. Click “Start” to begin the section for each borrower.

If Blend Income’s instant lookup returns a successful hit based on the information entered for the borrower and co-borrower in the Getting to Know You section, the income will be pre-filled and shown to the borrower/co-borrower on the next screen.

If the instant lookup does not return a hit, the borrower/co-borrower will be shown the different income types that can be added to the application. From here, they can initiate the Login-Based Provider income verification to add Employment or Military Pay. Refer to Login-Based Provider Workflow for details.

A Blend Income report will be generated for both the primary borrower and co-borrower if Blend Income is successful. There will be one report per borrower, per employer. The reports will be available in the borrower portal's Documents tab and the lender application's Docs tab. All reports will be visible for both sharing borrowers.