Home Lenders Enhance Digital Impact with Accelerated Closing and Funding, Relationship Value-Adds and Visual Consumer-Education Content

Bank of America and PNC Remain Tied for the Lead in Keynova Group's 2026 Mortgage-Home Equity Scorecard

WILMINGTON, Del., Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Keynova Group, the leading competitive intelligence source for digital financial services, today announced the results of its 2026 Mortgage-Home Equity Scorecard, a digital consumer experience benchmark evaluating the top 12 U.S.-based mortgage and home equity lenders. For the second consecutive year, Bank of America and PNC tied for first place in the annual Scorecard, which assesses the digital channels of leading bank and non-bank lenders.

"As consumers increasingly use on-demand services across all retail sectors, faster closing and funding options are the new battleground in home lending, with origination growth and borrower satisfaction closely tied to ease of application, speed of approval and timely access to funds," said Beth Robertson, managing director at Keynova Group. "Home lending is also a cornerstone of consumers' financial servicing relationships, so it's important for lenders to remove barriers between related business lines and use visual content to drive improved consumer experiences and create long-term, valuable customer relationships."

Key Findings:

More Lenders Enable Accelerated Closing and Funding
Fast-tracked mortgage and home equity closing and funding are becoming a critical differentiator, as the ability to accelerate these processes can make the difference in accepting a home purchase contract or covering an unexpected expense using a home equity product. In the past year, the number of Scorecard lenders featuring an accelerated home equity closing and funding option has doubled and is now offered by one-third of lenders––mostly non-banks that provide an approval in minutes and funding in as soon as a week. Digital capabilities that are helping to expedite application, underwriting and approval processes include asset valuation modeling as opposed to appraisals, integrating third-party or lenders' internal account data, using e-signature for closing documents, and employing online notaries for remote video closings. In addition, two-thirds of mortgage lenders and more than 40% of home equity lenders now use an applicant's existing credentials to prefill home lending applications. Given the importance of timely closings, 25% of lender sites promote a borrower incentive if they do not meet their stated closing date.

Building Total Relationship Value with Rewards
With mortgage holders typically maintaining higher depository and investment account balances than other consumers, lenders can expand financial servicing relationships using marketing approaches that generate deepened and multi-product servicing bonds. To build total relationship value, 42% of lenders incentivize mortgage holders that use credit cards, auto loans, and additional financial servicing products while also offering value-added options such as discounts on loan rates or fraud monitoring. Lenders' incentive programs are also commonly focused on home-purchasing needs, with 25% offering refunded or reduced closing costs and another 25% offering credits for shopping, purchasing, and/or selling through the lender's home shopping program. Customer relationships can be further deepened by leveraging existing relationship credentials to make it easy for customers to access lending applications and loan status tools, prefill applications, or enable direct access to customer account information for underwriting. Not having to link or manually enter asset or other account information during the application flow creates a more seamless and efficient digital application experience for current customers.

Complex Home Lending Processes Detailed in Visual Resources
Given most consumers' relatively infrequent use of home lending services, as well as their complex nature, visuals are key to conveying information digitally and can be used to illustrate the steps required to complete various lending tasks, driving improved adoption and self-servicing outcomes. While all Scorecard lenders provide at least some rich media content about home lending, 60% cover the mortgage process via video, and one-third outline steps involved in applying for a home equity loan or line. Chase and U.S. Bank further provide videos that review financial hardship options and the process for applying for assistance to avoid undesirable consequences such as foreclosure or short sale. Calculators and graphs are also essential visual resources, with PNC offering the richest selection of practical calculators including for less common topics such as using home equity for debt consolidation or determining whether paying points makes sense for a borrower.

About the Keynova Group Mortgage Home Equity Scorecard
Keynova Group's annual Mortgage-Home Equity Scorecard, syndicated since 2005, objectively reviews the digital capabilities and user experience at 12 of the top bank and non-bank lenders in the U.S. This includes eight of the largest financial institutions in home lending: Bank of America, Chase, Citi, Citizens, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo, and four of the largest non-bank home lenders: Freedom Mortgage, loanDepot, Rate, and Rocket Mortgage. For more information, please visit https://www.keynovagroup.com/scorecards/#credit-cards-and-lending.

About Keynova Group
Keynova Group is the nation's foremost competitive intelligence firm providing trusted benchmarking insights and analysis of consumer and small business digital financial services, including banking, credit card, home lending and insurance. Since 1999, Keynova Group's Scorecards have served as the go-to source for leading financial services firms to obtain reliable competitive intelligence and actionable insights. The firm's proven methodology and highly detailed results help its clients maximize the value of their digital channels to deliver a premier experience to customers and prospects.

SOURCE Keynova Group